


Riichi

by Solitarycafe



Series: Riichi [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Choose Your Own Ending, Cyberpunk, Erotica, F/F, Fights, Other, Science Fiction, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 05:21:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17522657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitarycafe/pseuds/Solitarycafe
Summary: A genetically modified woman defends herself against an alien onslaught as she searches for purpose.





	1. Riichi

**Author's Note:**

> This is a reader driven series!

_ Darkness and pain, serene she sleeps _

_ Light and dark, repeats, repeats _

_ Copacetic apathy _

_ Meaningless redundancy _

_ Defining her insanity   _

 

“Riichi.”

Razor fine and almost perfectly symmetrical eyelashes fluttered open slowly. A pair of lifeless, green grey eyes were unveiled, and their owner saw a sight she'd seen a hundred times before.

Four men, all dressed in long white lab coats, were sitting around a square table that had a green felted top. There were white tiles set in in stacks of two on all sides, and, in front of them, several rows of tiles facing up.

One of the scientists muttered something, but otherwise the men continued to play in silence.

The room was perfectly square and large enough to facilitate several rows of instruments and an array of holographic computer screens. A human sized aquarium was set into one wall, and inside of it the feminine creature continued to stare.

She (for it must have been female) knew the game well enough. She couldn’t hear much through the thick, shatterproof glass and the viscous, almost liquid biofluid she was floating in, but she knew that the game was called mahjong. Each day at the same time, the men in coats would gather and stoically shuffle and stack the pearly white tiles. She wasn’t exactly sure how the game was played, but she knew it involved making sets of tiles into hands. The hands must have been worth various points depending on how difficult they were to obtain, because sometimes the men would bet different amounts of money.

She didn’t think it was money they were betting, either, though it must have been some sort of in game currency. Each round, every man would throw in a long, thin piece of whatever material it was the tiles were made of, then they’d continue to play after they’d rebuilt the short wall of tiles.

Past mahjong, past the men in long white coats and past the wall of bioliquid and glass, the creature knew very little. Rather, she could remember very little, for it seemed that she had some sort of existence before she was stuck behind a glass wall.

Her life was the same every day. Sleep, quiet and darkness, then a jolting in her an entire body and a series of tasks. It was usually the same person, a thinnish, middle aged man with white skin and a short beard. He’d speak to her through some sort of device that must have been inside of her head, and he would ask her to do various, simple tasks.

“Move your left arm, move your left leg.” She knew the orders so well that sometimes she would try to anticipate them. If she disobeyed, there would be pain, but if she did everything she was asked, there was no pleasure, only continuance.

After her tasks were completed the man would leave and she would be left in darkness and quiet once more. Sometime later, the lights would always come on and the men would prepare for their mahjong. It was scarcely entertaining watching them play, but it was the closest thing to diversity she could get, and so she would often watch the games play out.

The most incredible thing about the game was that no matter how many hundreds of hands the men played, there was always something different about them. No two were ever the same, and the same person didn’t always win. She came to understand after some time that the game was incredibly deep, and that must have been why the men continued to play it.

And so the creature’s life went for an undetermined amount of time. Time itself, or the passing of it, was scarcely recognized by her. There were only designations and patterns, and soon they became as comfortable, predictable and mechanical as a clock. Everything save for the game that the men played. The game that was always different no matter how many times it was played. She could read some words on the men’s lips at times and hear muffled phrases. The game involved seats and winds, and overall it seemed just as mystical and it did exciting.

And so, the only aspiration the creature realized was that she very much wanted to play the game sometime. The desire was there, but the expectation was not. In fact, she didn’t expect or desire anything else, not even freedom. That was of course, before the voice…

 

It was somewhere amidst the dark and quiet time, the time when there was no sight or stimuli of any kind, the time when sleep sometimes came and sometimes did not.

“Riichi… Riichi…”

It was soft, cold, and feminine, but it sounded more timid than threatening. It wasn’t particularly alluring, but it was immediately different than anything that had ever happened before.

 

And different was interesting.

 

She waited a long moment to see if the voice would call again, or if it was calling at all. She waited. Then waited a bit longer. Then, it called out again, ringing gently in her head, as if it was speaking from inside of her.

“Riichi… speak with me.”

The creature blinked in the darkness and realized that her eyes were open. it didn’t make much a difference, the room was void of all light, but it was an odd sensation, because seconds before she might have assumed that her eyes were closed.

“Do I...speak?” She moved her lips beneath the placid, even temperature of the bioliquid.

The answer became clear right away, of course: she could indeed, which was an interesting discovery. She’d never been asked to speak, only to perform commands, but it seemed reasonable to her that if she could understand a language, then she must be able to speak on some level.

“You do speak, yes,” the voice inside of her head replied to her with a bit of humor, “I speak, too.”

The creature said nothing.

“Not very talkative, are you?” The voice asked.

Once again, the creature did not speak for a long time, but finally murmured, “Are you ordering me to speak?”

“No, no,” the voice chuckled sadly, “No orders here. Speak or don’t, that’s up to you, but I would ask that you listen.”

The phrase, ‘up to you’ rang in the creature’s head like a buzzing bug. Such a phrase implied that she could make her own decision about a matter, even if it was just one matter. It was an interesting thought that she planned to come back to at a later time, “I listen.”

“Good. Now, there’s not much time, so we’ve got to figure some things out quickly. I’m assuming that you don’t remember much of anything and you probably don’t care if you live or die, but let’s cut to the chase: what do you want in life?”

The question was painfully perplexing, and the creature winced in the darkness, “I want nothing.”

“Nothing? Hm… this is going to be harder than I thought. Okay… what about something you like, something that interests you? Tell me something that you find interesting.”

The question was much easier, and she answered right away, “Mahjong is interesting to me.”

“Mahjong? Really? Okay… I guess I can work with that. Very well: what is it about mahjong exactly that is interesting to you?”

She blinked again. The thought hadn’t crossed her mind, she just knew, collectively, that the game was intriguing. The task of dissecting her reasons for finding the game interesting seemed daunting, but it was actually much easier to do than she’d first thought, “It appears complex yet simple. It seems to require some level of skill, though chance has a place in it.”

“I see. And you want to play it sometime, yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed immediately before frowning, “So I do want… something.”

The voice laughed, “Seems like you do. Everyone wants something, even if it’s a simple something. I’ll ask you another question: how badly do you want to play the game?”

“Badly?” The questions seemed to cause a sort of physical pain, but it wasn’t the unpleasant kind of pain that the men in coats sometimes caused. It was, for lack of a better train of thought, a puzzle sort of pain, and she winced again.

“Yes, badly. What is the severity of your desire to play the game?”

There was yet another question she had not considered: desires could have severity levels. The concept in of itself was incredibly intriguing, and it took her a moment to grasp it completely, “If it is the only thing I desire, then the severity must be at its maximum level.”

“That’s quite a philosophical conclusion coming from someone who’s had their mind wiped. That’s a perfect answer, though. Alright, now we get into the hard stuff. Do you value your own life?”

The creature’s hand twitched. The question was beyond difficult, it was almost… intangible. “I am… alive?”

“Yes, but only in the most biological sense of the word. The way you’ve been existing isn’t what most people would consider living, but I guess you wouldn’t know that, would you? Aha, there’s a point to consider; let’s simplify it even more. Are you aware of the fact that you exist?”

It was a silly question, almost too simple, and the the creature answered easily, “I must exist because I am here.”

“Some Greek scholars might have disagreed with you,” the voice chuckled again, “But I personally think you’re right. Okay, so, if you acknowledge the fact that you exist, you must also acknowledge the fact that you’re sentient. Would you agree?”

“Yes… I must be sentient.”

“Yes, you must be. And, being sentient, you must understand the concept of free will.”

“Free...will?”

“Yes, the concept that you are a singular being with a mind and a consciousness and perhaps even a soul, though the jury’s out on the last one.”

“Jury?”

“Forget about that. My point is, you seem to know that you exist, you’re aware of the fact that you can think, and you have a desire for something that goes beyond simply surviving. The thing I need you to realize now is that you’ve got…”

The voice became silent as the door was opened. A second later, the light came on, and the creature closed its eyes quickly, if for no other reason than to avoid being blinded.

“I’m patching you through to the other side of the glass,” the voice told her. “They can’t hear me, but they’ll know if you speak. If you don’t want to feel pain, act as you normally do and no one will be the wiser.”

Before the creature could react, she began to hear other voices.

“Holy shit… this is… she’s incredible…”

“She is, isn’t she?”

“How does she… oh… I see.”

A laugh, “Yes, the subject is completely confined within the tank. She receives all of her nutrients intravenously, and, though there’s almost no waste coming from her digestive tract, everything is filtered through that tank. Even her shit is perfect.”

“What’s her name?”

“Officially, her name is subject nineteen, but we’ve taken to called her ‘Riichi’.”

“Reach?”

“No, no, Riichi, R-i-i-c-h-i. It sounds the same as reach, but it's a different word.” The masculine voice spelled out the name. “It’s a term used in Japanese mahjong when a player is trying to draw a winning tile from a closed hand. Anyway, the only people that call her that are the four of us that play here everyday.”

“Is she an original or a clone?”

“Oh, she’s all original. She’s one of the few subjects that survived the gate explosion, though, officially, no one survived it. She’s easily the most successful subject we’ve ever had. She took to synthesis better than any subject on record, and on top of that she hasn’t been affected adversely by genetic recoding. Riichi is, for all intents and purposes, the most adaptable creature in the universe.”

“Do you even consider her human anymore?”

Another chuckle, “I don’t know, professor, Soebeck, would you?”

Riichi (for she now knew that was her name) opened her eyes slowly. She saw two men: the bearded one that she was accustomed to, and an older man that she’d never seen before. The older man jumped back a little when she looked at him, and the man she was used to laughed, “Don’t worry, Soebeck, she can’t hurt you. Hell, I’m not even sure she would know how. Regardless, she can’t hear us unless we want her to, and she certainly doesn’t have any motivation to kill, let alone escape. Her will, along with her memories and physical abilities, are being suppressed.”

“I see. So, you have installed a subdermal device in her ear canal?”

“Close, but not exactly. Her ears, along with almost every other part of her extremities, are almost entirely bio-mechanical. When we speak to her, we essentially bypass her ears and send vocal waves directly to her brain; it’s a sort of, digital telepathy. She has the ability to receive and translate short and long radio waves, digital information packets and cellular waves. ”

“Remarkable,” the professor took a step closer to the Riichi and looked her over more closely. She was completely nude, of course, and every inch of her skin was immaculate. Through the bioliquid she was suspended in, her skin looked almost grey, but the man assumed that she had some sort of pigmentation. Her dark hair was long, and it traveled well past her waist and floated behind her gently like a mantle. Her features were fair, but it was for the discerning eye to see that much of it had been reconstructed.  The most peculiar thing about her was the small, barely noticeable scars around each of her extremities. It appeared as though the woman had been dissected and then reassembled, and though none of the scars were ugly, it was clear that her body was nothing like the one she’d been born with.

The younger researcher (though Riichi didn’t know what a researcher was, exactly) stepped over to one of the holographic screens and tapped a few buttons on it, “She is indeed, but that’s not really what you’re here to see, is it?” The man commented with a smile as he brought up some images on the screen.

The man named Soebeck turned from the creature and gasped excitedly, “Is this… her genetic code?”

“It is,” the younger researcher nodded.

The professor winced at the screen and shook his head, “This is impossible! At least… they said it was impossible. Is this a triple helix?”

“Almost, but not perfectly. Being the leading expert in your field, I’m sure you don’t need an exhaustive explanation from me, but here it is in a nutshell: We’ve created a completely synthetic RNA strand that periodically binds itself to her modified DNA. Since enzymes can only be absorbed by a standard helix, the RNA is only used to synthesize pyrimidines and purines based on what is needed. This greatly speeds up the cell replication process, along with…”

“Everything else…” Soebeck stared at the screen in disbelief as he watched the microscopic show. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen or thought possible, and he continued under his breath. “If she is injured, how quickly does she heal?”

“Assuming she has access to enough hydrogen her healing abilities are thousands of times greater than that of a normal human. Her cells don’t just replicate, they also adapt, because the synthetic RNA has a collective desire to improve. It’s a program, of course, not sentient in any way, but it’s easy to jump to that conclusion when you watch it work,” the younger scientist turned toward Riichi and smiled, “I could tear her limbs off right this moment and she’d grow them back within days. In the first several months of being introduced to the RNA, her body actually began to manufacture its own unique macrophages; essentially we’ve created a human axolotl. As long as her organs are functioning, she could theoretically be torn to shreds and still survive. Her blood clots in seconds, the synthesis takes care of that, and every organ in her body has a failsafe.”

“Tell me about her metabolism!” The professor asked excitedly as he continued to stare unblinkingly at the screen.

The audio was disconnected as the professor went into another spiel, and Riichi was left in watery silence once more.

“Riichi… it’s me again,” the voice from before rang out in her head. “I’m not sure how much of that you understood but that’s not important right now. In just a few seconds, everything is going to change. I don't have time to explain, but you need to make a choice about whether or not you want to live. The creatures that are coming will cause you far more pain than what you've experienced here; thousands of times more. If you want to avoid that, then…”

The voice stopped as the room began to shake. The two researchers exchanged glances, and the older one shouted at the younger. Several seconds passed and Riichi saw the men screaming towards one of the computers.

 

Then the lights went out.

 

“Riichi, can you hear me?” The voice cut through the darkness.

“Yes,” the woman replied evenly as she tried tried to adjust her eyes.

A dim set of reddish lights kicked in suddenly, and Riichi saw the two men arguing about something.

“I'm putting you through to them,” the voice explained calmly.

A moment after, the frantic conversation of the two men came through.

“...billions of dollars worth of research! Regardless of the money, we're talking about the greatest scientific breakthrough of the last three centuries!”

“That's exactly why we shouldn't!” The older man pleaded. “How can we possibly…”

A loud thunk on the door caused both men to go silent.

“Soebeck… If they get in here we're finished,” the younger researcher turned to the holographic terminal and began to move his fingers over the screen desperately. “She's not the only modified here, either, as I'm sure you know. If the Kind gets ahold of any one of them, especially Riichi, this facility may very well be responsible for the destruction of the entire human race.”

“So we're just going to kill them all, Roberts?!” They older scientist clenched his fists and looked back at Riichi, who looked just as calm as she had minutes before.

“We have to!” The younger man snapped as he grabbed a glass vial from the cabinet below the terminal. “We don't have a choice! If it were up to me, I would save them all, but if the entrance has already been breached then…”

Another slam rang out against the door, this one much louder and stronger than the last. The researcher named Roberts looked at Soebeck grimly, “Everyone could be dead already. We've prepared for this kind of scenario, I just hoped that it would never get to this point…” the researcher hit a few more buttons on the screen before he sighed heavily, “There… It's done.”

“What's done?” Soebeck started at the door like a man who was trying to come to terms with death, “How can you kill so many modified all at once?”

“It's a virus that evolves and adapts based on the modified's genetic resistances. Riichi here,” he gestured towards the tank while he walked over to a steel cabinet on the far side of the room, “Is practically immune to any virus or disease on Earth. This virus knows that, and it actually uses her modified RNA against her. It might take seconds or minutes, but it'll kill her sooner than later, and when it does it'll render all of her genetic code worthless.”

The researcher opened the cabinet and pulled some sort of gun from it. Riichi, of course, didn’t even know it was a weapon, or even what a weapon was, but she watched the scene unfold as the mysterious voice rang in her head once more.

“How much of that did you understand, Riichi?”

The creature thought for a long moment as the one named Robert tried to shove the gun into the hands of the older man, “They want to kill me. There is more than one like me, here, and they want to kill all of us. We are not easy to kill, so they made special…”

“Hang on,” the voice interjected as the room shook once more. The room’s door made a horrible screeching sound that Riichi could hear through the glass, and the two men stepped back from it and pointed the strange objects they were holding at it. “So you know what death is?”

“Yes: the absence of life.”

“Again with the accidental philosophy, I see. Look, Riichi, we’re out of time, so let me ask you this: do you want to die?”

The screeching sound at the door intensified as older man turned the gun to his own head.

Riichi watched the younger man shout and lunge at the older man, and the two of them wrestled for a few seconds. “Is death undesirable?”

“Depends on who you ask, but generally, yes. If you die, you don’t get to do the things you want. In your case, you don’t get to see any more interesting things, and you’ll never get to play mahjong.”

Riichi watched the door explode inward suddenly. She didn’t flinch when a huge chunk of steel crashed against the front of the tank, and she didn’t blink when the room was filled with smoke. The men in coats were covering themselves and firing their weapons blindly.

_ I want to play mahjong,  _ Riichi thought as one of the men, Soebeck was his name, pointed the gun to his head once more. Before he could fire, however, his chest blossomed into a fountain of red and blood began to bubble up from his mouth as he slumped to the ground.

Riichi saw a creature enter the room through the smoke, something that was clearly not human. It was tall and lanky and seemed to be covered in some sort of metallic armor that covered the majority of its body. The younger researcher fired wildly towards it, but whatever projectile the gun was shooting seemed to bounce off the creature as it leapt forward with blinding speed. 

“This creature is an alien that humans call the Kind,” the voice told her quickly as Riichi witnessed the death of the man who’d named her. The creature slammed the man to ground and sunk it’s long, talon like fingers into the man’s throat. A crimson mist of blood splashed around the man’s chest and face as the creature literally ripped his victim’s throat out, and a moment later the scientist’s body went limp.

“They’ll want to take you alive, but they won’t hesitate to kill you if you threaten them,” the voice explained as the alien stood suddenly and walked toward the tank.

Through the cracked glass, Riichi looked the creature over as it raised its head to look her over in turn. The glass, thick as it was, was fractured in several places, and the strange alien traced it's finger over one of the larger cracks.

“It’s time to choose, Riichi,” the voice told her, “If you want to stay alive and experience life, you'll have to kill this creature. If you can't find a reason to live, then both of us will die.”

Riichi watched the alien passively as she weighed her options. It seemed odd to her that one needed a reason to continue to live, but then, she had to admit that life as she knew it hadn't been very interesting. She considered the possibility that the quality of one's life might be a great determining factor in the decision, but she didn't have much time to mull it over.

The creature took a step back and raised it's left arm towards the glass. A long, cylindrical tube sat on top of its arm that looked somehow foreboding, and the alien pointed it directly at the largest fracture in the glass.

“How do I kill this creature?” Riichi asked.

“You're strong enough to crush it's throat, but…”

_ Kr-kow! _

The glass imploded, sending Riichi backwards through the viscous biogel. The strange, synthetic substance exploded from the tank a moment later, pulling her through the crumbling remnant of what used to be an impassable barrier, the breathing apparatus tore away from her face as the biogel flooded into the room, and she fell limpidly onto the ground in front of the creature. It tried to take hold of her, but the biogel was slick and dense, and it lost its grip.

The engineered woman barely felt the alien’s grip as she gasped for air. She’d been breathing through the tubes in her nose for such a long time that the air seemed to scorch her, and she coughed and sputtered as she struggled to regain her sight.

It wasn’t fear or dread that motivated her as she struggled to move, but an unexplainable drive to survive. Her muscles, though not atrophied, were unresponsive, and she realized immediately that she would not be able to stand toe to toe with the unknown creature.

It grabbed at her again, and this time she let it. She felt its gloved hands dig into her arm as it yanked her upwards, then she pulled her body back down, allowing herself to go limp while it attempted to hold on.

The rest was a violent blur. The creature fell forwards on top of her as she turned and tried to grab it’s throat. It flung her hands away and struck her squarely in the face, but Riichi felt nothing as she balled her fist and slammed in into the creature’s side.

Whatever armor the creature wore didn’t see to lessen the impact of the blow, and it made an otherworldly croak as it lashed out at her face, this time with open hands.

Riichi screamed. It was an odd, foreign sound, even to her, but it seemed to awaken something dormant inside of her. She closed her eyes tightly as the alien attempted to press it’s fingers into her sockets, and she grit her teeth as she flailed her head back and forth.

She  threw up her arms and grabbed the creature’s wrists, then, with another scream, she raised her forehead and pulled it towards her forcefully. The alien’s helmet crashed down onto her forehead, crushing the bridge of her nose and splitting her eyebrows as it did so.

Once again, though armored, the sheer impact of the blow seemed to daze the creature, and she felt it’s grip on her weaken slightly. Before it had a chance to regain its senses, she twisted her body and finally managed to lock her fingers around its throat.

Then she squeezed.

Now on the receiving end, the creature grunted and screamed in its own way as it tore at her face and hair. Blood ran down in sheets over her eyes, blurring her vision, but still she squeezed harder, willing her fingers to close more closely around it’s vitals.

Naked and wet, the engineered woman closed her eyes and grunted as she felt a fresh wound being torn open on her cheek. She was vaguely aware of the weapon that the creature wore on it’s arm, but she was angling herself in such a way as to where her opponent was unable to face it towards her.

It’s skin was thick and leathery, almost rubbery in texture, and she wondered briefly if she would actually be able to kill it in such a way. Finally, just as she began to feel her stamina ebbing away, something snapped beneath the creature’s skin, and it’s hands went limp along with the rest of its body.

“Riichi, listen to me. There are more of these on the way. Dozens more, maybe hundreds, and this one represents the weakest of their kind. I don’t want to order you around, but if you want to live, you need to do exactly what I tell you right now.”

The prospect of fighting another of the invaders with her only her hands seemed like an impossibility, and she was already very nearly blind, “Yes…” her voice was a whisper. Now that she was out of the tank, she could actually hear herself speak, and it sounded even more eerie than her scream, “Tell me what to do.”

“The cannon on the monster’s arm: rip it off.”

She did so wordlessly. The weapon, for indeed that’s what it must have been, was nearly the length of her forearm and was a matte, almost dark silver color. It had heat vents lining both sides of it and a large barrel that seemed to travel the entire length of the weapon. A few yellowish lights flashed from the weapon as she tore it off the deceased alien’s arm, and she was somewhat surprised to feel how light it was despite its size.

“There’s something I need to tell you about this weapon: no human has ever survived wearing it. It’s standard issue for the Kind, but it’s not like human weapons where it can be cast aside easily. It actually integrates with your musculoskeletal system, but thus far anyone who’s tried to fire it has suffered from some sort of stroke or heart attack. You’re different, though; your body is so adaptable that you may be able to survive the process and use it just as well if not better than the Kind, but that’s just speculation. If you decide to wear it, you may be able to fight your way out to where you need to go, but then, it might kill you. Do you understand, Riichi?”

The engineered woman wiped blood from one of her swollen eyes and stared at the weapon, “There is a virus inside of me already, yes?”

“Yes, and it will certainly kill you if the Kind don’t get around to it first. If you can make your way to the archive, I can take the necessary steps to eliminate the virus, but…”

“I must get there first,” the woman said blankly as she slid her left arm into the sleeve that cradled the weapon.

As she did so, the lights on the cannon blinked in succession. A second later, she felt a sharp prick as something stabbed her upper forearm, then she froze.

Pain. Pain was all there was as every nerve in her body spiked. She fell to her knees as she cried out, and she clutched herself tightly as she ground her teeth together.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, the pain simply disappeared.   

 She was about to take a step when her vision began to blur again, and she coughed as a strange, squeezing pressure flooded her chest.

“The virus is working already. From what little I know of it, it’s going to target your organs first. If it’s successful, then…”

“It won’t be successful,” Riichi took a deep breath and wiped the last of the muck from her body before she raised the weapon and examined it. Strangely, even though she’d scarcely known what a gun was a few minutes prior, she understood the weapon and knew how to use it.

“Speaking for yourself already, hm? Good. Are you ready, Riichi?”

“How does one become ready?”

The voice laughed, “One doesn’t, one simply acts and hopes one doesn’t get killed.”

 

Chief of security Emmet Garda had been the first to spot the discrepancy. One minute, everything was fine and he’d been drinking the same boring cup of coffee, the next, he was squinting at the screen and getting a sinking feeling in his stomach.

No one in the security monitoring room wanted to believe it, but a Kind ship was coming in.

“How did they find us?!”

“What in God’s name is that?! Is that… shit, shit, shit, no!”

“Fuck, we’re all going to die!” 

There was more panic than logic in the minute before the ship landed, but instead of panicking like most of the others Emmet set his coffee cup down and ran to the armory.

It didn’t take the Kind long to blast through the facility doors. The main gun on their cruiser possessed enough power to blow a hole through three research facilities, and the heavily cloaked building wasn’t built to withstand such an assault. Their attack was swift and brutal, and at least half of the facilities security force was decimated within minutes.

Somehow, Emmett had survived. He and five others that he’d pulled in along the way had managed to make it to the archive, the central control station for the entire facility. Even though it had cost him a man he’d managed to lock down every wing of the facility to its maximum. Several inner barricades had closed in some of the attacking force in the process, so waves of Kind were making their way towards the archive in an attempt to free themselves and allow more of their forces to join the takeover.

Emmet and his four comrades had used everything from the archives they could find to set up a barricade, but it wasn’t going to hold for long.

“I think these motherfuckers can see in the dark!” One of the four shouted at Emmet as he fired his weapon from behind a steel supply crate.

The red emergency lights reflected dimly off the chief of security's sweat stained face, “Count on it! We’re going to have to make a push soon if we…”

_ Shoom! _

Another orange ball of energy exploded into the side of one of the supply crates, pushing each of the men backwards. All of them were wearing random pieces of armor, but none of them were completely equipped. The force affected some of them more than others, but each of them recovered within seconds.

Emmet growled and fired blindly into the red darkness, but the Kind were probably not in the line of fire.

“How much ammo do we have left?” One of the men muttered as he checked his rifle.

“Enough to rush them. We’ve got one turret we can throw out, and then…”

_ Tink,tink,tink,tink… _ a strange, tiny metallic sound could be heard bouncing successively from the walls, and each of the men exchanged a look before Emmet screamed, “Back into the archives roo…”

Tool late. A dozen tiny metal balls bounced into the barricade, each about the size of a marble. The men screamed and tried to throw them back, but they all exploded at once, blasting tiny pieces of shrapnel everywhere.

For the chief of security, there was no pain, only the realization that they’d failed. He felt his legs give out beneath him as he witnessed his men being torn to shreds, and he wondered briefly how it was that he was still able to see.

He’d always been the lucky sort, and it seemed that in death that was no exception. He slumped backwards against the door of the archives room and looked straight ahead in the direction that the tiny bouncing grenades had come from. There was no hope the facility now, and possibly, for all of humanity. He knew all too well the sort of research they were protecting, and the Kind’s reasons for being there weren’t lost to him.

He grit his teeth as he readied his weapon. His left arm was completely crippled, and he supposed his legs must have been as well, but he had no interest in even glancing at them as he awaited the onslaught.

But the onslaught did not come. Instead, there was canon fire.

The shots were not directed towards him, he realized, but a firefight was happening further down the corridor where the Kind were. His eyes widened as he allowed himself to hope that a small security team had somehow survived and was coming to meet him. Whoever it was, they were making short work of the enemy. He could hear the guttural croaks and therwordly screams of the aliens as they fought. From the defense his group had been mounting, he guessed there to be at least three, but as several seconds passed he heard fewer and fewer weapons being fired. Seconds later, there were no weapons being fired at all, but he did hear the distant, echoing gargle of what could only be one of the Kind being strangled to death.

Then, there was silence.

“O...over here!” Emmet rasped as he allowed his weapon to clatter to the ground.

Soft footsteps could be heard padding towards him, and he strained his eyes to see how many of his guard had come to defend the archives.

“What… the hell…” his eyes widened as his savior came into view.

It was a woman. She was completely naked, save for the Kind canon she wore on her left arm. Her face was a mess of dried blood and matted hair, and her arms and legs were bleeding in several places.

“No… you’re… no!” Emmet shook his head and shouted as he tried to pick up his rifle.

“I need to get into this room,” the woman told him quietly as she stood on top of the rifle. “The voice tells me that you can open it for me.”

“Go fuck yourself!” The chief of security replied as he began to cough up blood. “You have no idea how much you’re worth to these things; you need to di…”

The woman reached down with one hand and grabbed the man’s scalp, gripping his hair tightly and yanking him upward, “The voice tells me that your eyes are keys; open this door for me.”

“Gah...gnng...no!” Emett struggled as the woman lifted him like a rag doll and twisted his body. He screamed as he felt his legs dragging on the floor, and he realized that they must have been completely mangled in the explosion.

The naked woman pressed the chief's face toward a small screen beside the door and ordered, “Open the door now.”

“I won't!” The man squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“Why?”

The question sparked a moment of wonder in the man that temporarily overrode his fear, “If the Kind get into this room, it'll be all over...for everyone.”

“I understand, but if I get into this room, I can kill the Kind and the threat will be nullified.”

“There's an entire goddamn army of them outside!” The man growled, “You couldn't possibly…” he stopped as he remembered the canon on her arm. No one, not even the strongest of Earth's modified soldiers had been able to wield the Kind weapon, but the woman seemed to be using it without issue.

“ Professor Roberts… did he try to kill you?”

He heard an answer from the woman a moment later, “Not directly: a virus was released into my system; it will kill me shortly if do not gain entry into this room.”

He exhaled sharply. He'd been told by the researchers that if such a catastrophic event were to occur, the custom virus would kill the modified in a matter of minutes. Riichi, however, seemed to be holding her own, but it was only then that could he feel her shaking and hear the sounds of her harsh breathing.

Perhaps, despite the bitter irony of the situation, she was right. Emett opened his eyes slowly and sighed, “If you let them take the facility and the others… you may not have much of a home to go back to.”

Riichi had no idea what the man meant, but she didn't think about it too much as the door slid open. She released her hold on the chief unceremoniously, and the broken man crumpled to the ground in a heap as she entered.

“W,wait…” the murmured as his vision began to blur. He felt oddly cold suddenly.

Riichi did not wait. She turned towards the man and pushed him out of the way with her foot, then the door slid closed and he was left in silence.

He didn’t suffer long. Only a few seconds passed before his consciousness began to fade, then, for the first and last time in his life, Emett Garda closed his eyes and felt his luck run out.

 

The archive didn’t look very impressive to the genetically modified woman, but then, there probably wasn’t much of anything that could have impressed her.

That’s not to say that the room didn’t live up to its name. Rows and rows of servers were set into the wall of the cylindrically shaped room, all of them blinking with informational promise. A large array of holographic screens sat in the middle, and Riichi approached one, “This is the computer we need, yes?”

“Don’t bother trying to operate it; it won’t respond to you,” the voice told her. “There should be a panel in the ground directly below you. Open it up.”

Riichi’s breath was becoming less and less regulated, and she could feel certain parts of her body giving out as she slipped her fingers beneath the panel and flipped it upward. A small, gently glowing mirror met her gaze. She paused as she looked down at it and cocked her head: It was cycling through a bismuth assortment of colors, and it was somehow fascinating, one might even say… pretty.

“Riichi, stay with me,” The voice shook her out her trance. “That little glowing mirror is our ticket into the brain of this place. Once I have control I may be able to reroute the power and get the cameras online so I can help you a little more. You're body is capable of creating a link with this fiber optic wall, but it's going to cause you a substantial amount of pain. ”

The scarred woman nodded, “If it is necessary, I will endure it.”

“Pretty damn stoic, aren’t you? Alright, I just wanted to give you prior warning; it’s not my intention to hurt you. When you’re ready, hold your palm down flat against the glowing part and don’t move it until I tell you to.”

“Understood,” Riichi replied before she reached down and carried out the task immediately.

At first, there was little no pain at all, just a slight, distant tingling. The tingling intensified however, and the modified woman began to tremble as she braced herself.

“20 percent,” the voice told her calmly, “You’re doing great, Riichi.”

The bloody, naked woman grit her teeth as the tingling turned to burning.

“40 percent, almost halfway there.”

The woman closed her eyes and concentrated. The desire to remove her hand was strong, but she was so dedicated to following orders that the idea of deliberately going against them seemed like an impossibility. As the pain intensified, she realized the irony of such a thought: she was being asked to do something that she was told would cause her pain, but in the past she was following orders so she could avoid pain. The two situation were fundamentally different, and even though her hand was beginning to feel like it was on fire, something extraordinary happened.

Riichi smiled.

It was a small smile that probably wouldn’t have been noticed by anyone, and she herself didn’t understand it as she fought the urge to scream.

“80 percent, just a few seconds longer.”

Riichi looked down through the panel and clenched her teeth. It felt like a thousand red hot needles were being poked into her palm over and over again, and she began to shake as she finally cried out.

“I’m finished, get your hand out of there!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Her arm was completely numb, so she grabbed her wrist with her free hand and pulled herself backwards.

A soft light flooded into the room as the holographic screens jumped to life.

“We’ve got what we need, but there’s still one more thing you have to do,” the voice came through to her as she caught her breath and clutched her arm. “That virus is going to kill you in minutes in your current state, so we’ll have to hurry.”

“What… what do I need to do?” The woman struggled to her feet.

“Two rooms over, back the way you came and to the left, there’s the last room you need to be in. I have some camera access now, and I can see that the way is mostly clear. There are a few Kind prowling around trying to find a way out of this wing of the structure, but I think you can avoid them if you do exactly as I say.”

Riichi moved towards the door, her right arm hanging limply at her side, “I will.”

 

_ Scritch, scritch, scritch _ …

The alien lifeform pressed the tip of it’s talon-like finger into the small groove of the access panel and attempted to pry it open. After several attempts, it was finally rewarded with a satisfying clicking sound, and the panel swung upwards.

There was scarcely enough light to see the pathway, but the creature didn’t seem to be having any trouble with it’s vision as it began to tinker with the door controls. It croaked under its breath as it realized that all power had been taken from the emergency barrier door control, but that didn’t stop it from continuing to fiddle with the circuit.

“It’s hidden in the doorway on the left, five lights down,” the voice said evenly. “It’s facing away from you with it’s back turned. If you can walk very slowly and quietly, you can get behind it and kill it without making too much of a fuss.”

“How do I kill it like that?” Riichi spoke almost without speaking, allowing her vocal cords to move without letting out too much sound.

“Take the knife in your hand and drive it into the creature’s head. It’s taken its helmet and gloves off, so it should be relatively easy to take down.”

Riich did as she was told and began to slink forward. At the behest of the voice, she’d taken some basic clothing from one of the dead men outside of the archive room: a simple pair of tight fitting shorts and a white undershirt. It was the sort of outfit that a soldier would wear beneath their armor, and though it wasn’t offering much in the way of protection it was helping to keep her warm.

Since her right arm was largely crippled, she didn’t bother taking any other weapons with her. The knife was about the only thing that made sense to carry, and she gripped it tightly as she crept forward. The mens’ boots had been far too large for her feet, and so she still moved barefoot against the steel floor, her footsteps making little more than a whisper as she made it ever closer to her goal.

“Rotate the blade so it’s facing away from you and hold it in front of your chest… yes, like that. Now, in a few more steps, you won’t be able to see very well, so you’re going to have to do exactly what I tell you.”

Riichi saw nothing in front of her as she passed into the wide doorway and slipped away from the comfort of the red emergency lights. If she’d been walking directly down the middle of the hall, anyone who was hiding into the shadows of the doorways would easily be able to ambush her, including the creature she was currently trying to kill.

“It’s about five feet in front of you. It’s very focused on what it’s doing, so you should be able to…”

Riichi’s eyes widened as she began to cough. her lungs suddenly felt like they were filling up with fluid, and she lunged forward as she realized that it was too late for a surprise attack.

The fight only lasted for a few seconds, but like before, when she’d been released from the tank, it felt like a small eternity. She slashed into the mass of flesh that assaulted her, feeling the blade slice several times as she felt herself being gouged. Somehow, she ended up on the ground and the knife was knocked from her hand, and the two desperate creatures wrestled as they tried to claw at each other’s faces.

“To your left! The helmet!”

Riichi heard the voice yell at her and she reached out with her good arm as she turned her face away from the attacking creature. her fingers grasped the cool steel of the Kind helmet, and she slipped her fingers around one of the eye holes and swung it up at its owner repeatedly. The creature fell away from her and thrashed as it tried to get to its feet, but Riichi’s onslaught was merciless.

She grunted as she smashed the helmet into the creature over and over again in the darkness. Black blood sprayed against her face with each connecting blow, and even though she had no idea if it was dead or not, she didn’t want to take any chances.

“Riichi, I’ve opened the door; get inside, quickly.”

The battered woman dropped the helmet and tried to stand, but her legs gave way beneath her and she fell back to the ground.

“If you can get into this room I promise we can fix you,” the voice told her with an edge of sympathy. “Just a little bit more of a push.”

The woman winced and dragged herself through the door with her one good arm, leaving a trail of two different kinds of blood in her wake.

 

Once the door was closed behind her, Riichi collapsed and closed her eyes. She could feel her organs rebelling against her, and every breath was beginning to cause her pain.

“Give me a minute, Riichi,” the voice told her as soft, yellow light flooded the room. “This process is completely computer operated, so I should be able to… hey, stay with me!”

Riichi opened her eyes suddenly and gasped as a fresh wave of coughing overcame her. She turned her face towards the floor as she spit up blood, and she nodded, “Yes… I am still alive.”

“Good. Now…” the voice spoke to her as a strange looking machine in the middle of the room began to blink. The room itself was cylindrically shaped, like the archives room, only this one contained thousands of rows of tiny blue vials that were set into some sort of computerized filing system. “This room contains genetic information from nearly every creature on Earth. I’ve been spying on the work that’s been going on here for a long time, and I know a few secrets. Your proverbial father, may his soul rest in peace,” the voice added sarcastically, “Created a compound that he didn’t want anyone to know about. Something so volatile and dangerous that he was afraid to share it with anyone, but he also wanted to build his legacy with it. If you drink it, I have no doubt that it will eradicate the virus inside of you, but I also have no idea what else it could do. Do you understand, Riichi?”

Riichi struggled to keep her eyes open as she watched the machine hum and whir. Hundreds of the tiny vials were being carried from their resting place to the inside of the machine via a system that was build into the floor, and the woman nodded, “I understand.”

The voice sighed, “I hope you do. I’m serious, I really have no idea what this could do to you. Literally anything could happen: you could turn into a monster. This compound could alter every one of your molecules… what I’m saying is: you might wish you had died if you decide to drink it, but I have to give you the option to choose. There’s been too much taken from us...too little option to choose. Many of us would have chosen death over what they did to us… but that’s neither here nor there.”

The machine whirred for a bit longer before it stopped.

“It’s ready,” the voice rang in her head resolutely as a small door at the top of the machine opened, “Drink it and live to be god knows what, or die in relative comfort. I’m sorry that these are the only two options I can give you, Riichi… you deserve more than that, but it’s all I’m capable of.”

The decision was hardly a difficult one. The engineered woman couldn't remember anything about her past, so there was nothing to be sentimental about. There was no one to impress or disappoint, and she had no expectation of an afterlife.

In the end, there was still the mysterious game that was the source of her namesake, and allowing herself to die deliberately seemed boring.

Riichi dragged, crawled and scraped her way towards the center of the room, coughing and sputtering all the way.

“I'm already a monster of sorts, yes?” She hacked as she reached for the tiny vial. Her trembling fingers closed around the glass, and she managed to lift it to her lips as she held herself up in a half sitting position, “Based on what I know, I am already so far removed from the natural that the logical course of action is to travel further into the unnatural.”

The voice chuckled, “You really are a philosopher, aren't you?”

Riichi didn't answer, but instead, tipped the vial to her lips and drank.

The cool, bluish liquid trickled down her throat like liquid fate. Her body tried to cough it up, but she forced herself to swallow, and seconds later, her eyes dilated to a depthless grey.

“Gnh...unh...ha...gah!”

Riichi screamed as her body convulsed.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  



	2. Riichi:Haku

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hybrid woman continues to search for a purpose while she struggles to survive. She discovers that she may not be the only surviving experiment...

Carbon are we and little more  
Questions, questions, what’s it for?  
Blood is life but what does it mean?  
Biology, a new machine  
Thirst for knowledge, what memories make  
Purpose a thirst that cannot be slaked 

 

“Riichi…”  
“...know...probably...hear…”  
“...side the door…”  
“Riichi!”  
“Gahhhh!” The hybrid girl’s eyes shot open as her own scream echoed in her ears. Her blood felt like it was on fire, and she was shaking so hard that she felt like she was seizing.  
“I’m sure you feel like hell right now, but you’ve got to sober up. There are three of the Kind outside and they’re trying to get in.”  
“How...how long was I unconscious?” Riichi didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice for how hoarse it was.  
“Long enough. It’s only a matter of time before they breach the manual door controls, and you’re in no shape to fight them. Your blood pressure is out of control and you’ve suddenly become extremely dehydrated. I have access to your vitals now and it looks like something is trying to take over your immune system. I don’t think it’s the virus; that should be cleared, but…”  
“I’m so… thirsty.” Riichi looked around the room absently, barely hearing the sounds of the Kind tinkering on the other side of the door.  
Her head was pounding and her tongue was swollen, and she realized that she couldn’t remember ever having been thirsty at any point in her life. But that simply couldn’t be true, she realized, because she couldn’t possibly know what being thirsty was unless she’d experienced it before.  
“You need to drink some water. When you drank the compound, your brain cells started going nuts. Most of your wounds are actually gone, but…”  
The machine that had given Riichi the volatile compound began to whirr again.  
“Here, let me see if I can get water out of this, hold on.”  
Several seconds passed as Riichi struggled to her feet. Her knees and arms were shaking so violently that she could barely pull herself off of the ground, and her skin was clammy and pale.  
The machine whirred as liquid began to pour from the small injector, “It's a saline solution. I've told the computer to omit the salt, so you should be left with distilled water. It's not perfect, but…”  
Riichi was already leaning forward and lapping at the small trickle of water. The cool liquid ran down her throat and brought instant relief, and she turned her neck sideways and tried to position her mouth beneath the stream.  
“I'm estimating that you've got about five minutes before they get that door open. It's still dark out there, so you may be able to use that to your advantage.”  
Riichi continued to drink, and as she did so, several of the cuts on her body began to disappear.  
“Interesting…” the voice commented. “Yes, this makes sense. You seem to have adapted a sort of accelerated healing ability. I can't be entirely sure, but it looks as if your body is using hydrogen to accelerate the abilities of your triple helix bonding.”  
The hybrid woman barely heard the voice in her head as she gulped down as much of the stream as she could. Finally, after about a full minute, she pulled back and inhaled sharply. Her head was beginning to clear, but she still felt plenty strange.  
“Can they see in the dark?”  
“Not completely, but better than a human by a long shot. If you can ambush them, you may have a chance; you’re stronger than you think, Riichi.”  
“What is the next step after killing them?”  
“Get you out of there. I’m not sure how many of the escape shuttles were used, but I’m certain that the ones that were were immediately shot out of the sky. The Kind ship outside the facility is big enough to wipe this entire station off the planet if it wanted to, but with my help we should be able to provide you with a clean getaway.”  
“Why?” Riichi asked slowly as she began to regain some normalcy in her senses.  
“Ah, back to this. Well, it really depends on…”  
“There are others like me on the station… yes?” Riichi asked quietly.  
The voice in her head paused for a long moment, “There are, but they may be dead already, Riichi.”  
The hybrid woman winced as her head began to throb. “Tell me… does the virus no longer poses a threat to me?”  
“No, I don’t believe so. As far as I can tell, it’s been integrated into your system and probably even utilized towards your overall… hey,” the voice sighed, “We’re just about out of time; let’s talk about this later.”  
Riichi frowned, but she nodded. Her mind felt fuzzy, like she was trying to remember something important, but there was scarcely enough time to rally herself, let alone meditate.  
“Go crouch beside the door, if you would. I’m going to turn off the lights, then I’ll tell you my plan for taking care of these guys.”  
Riichi did as she was told and moved towards the door. As she crouched, she could hear the sounds of the aliens trying to get inside, but she still didn’t feel afraid. She did however, feel something else, something strange and foreign between her legs, and she shifted slightly as she felt around her crotch. The shorts she was wearing did little to cover her, and there was a bulge there that hadn’t been there before…  
“Riichi, they’re getting through. I see that you’ve noticed your, er… addition. If you survive this fight, we’ll talk about it, but it seemed like the least important thing given the circumstances. Do exactly as I say, and you’ll come through no problem.”  
Riichi winced as she felt around her crotch once more, “That is what you said last time.”  
“Touche.”

The creature saw in gray and black. What little light there was was amplified by its equivalent of a tapetum lucidum, and, much like a cat’s eyes, its pupil was elliptical.  
The door opened in front of its comrades and it raised it’s arm cannon as the three of them swept forward. The room was dark; darker even, than the hallway outside, since none of the red hued emergency lights seemed to be working. Still, as the three of them moved forward, it could see well enough as it took up the back of the line.  
Their formation was practiced and fluid; a product of their rigorous training. The two in front secured the left and right sides of the room, while the one in back turned to make sure their backside was clear.  
The last thing it felt was a pressure around its head, then it squealed as it experienced the peculiar feeling of its neck being snapped.  
Then the lights came on.  
The two Kind dove blindly in opposite directions as they reacted to the sudden explosion of light. One of them came up and turned with its cannon raised, the other was already being slammed into the thick glass wall by a bright orange ball of energy.  
Kow!  
The sound came a half second later as Riichi tumbled sideways. Already, the third Kind was firing towards her, its shot made completely from raw instinct.  
It was a good thing she moved, because the same ball of energy smashed against the wall as the report of the weapon met her ears, and a smoldering, black mark was left where the hybrid woman had fired from.  
She’d only fired once, but Riichi’s arm was almost hot enough to be smoking. Even with her modified body, the heat generated from the fission fire was incredible, and making another shot so soon was certain to cause serious damage to her.  
So instead, she launched herself towards the now very dead Kind that had crumpled against the glass. With a loud grunt, she hefted the corpse upwards and shouted as she felt something tremendous knock her down.  
The last remaining Kind had fired at her again. It seemed that the weapon had at least a five second cool down, and And she growled as she struggled to her feet. She could smell the burning flesh and steel armor of the Kind she’d used as a shield, and she knew that she wouldn’t be able to survive a third blast of the overpowered weapon.  
She did the same thing that had gotten her that far to begin with: she charged forward. It seemed that the invaders weren’t used to being so directly assaulted, and this particular Kind made the mistake of raising its cannon once more.  
She arrived before it had a chance to fire again. With a growl, she grabbed the creature’s arm and ducked below it before yanking it towards her. Being caught off balance, the creature fell forward, and Riichi slammed her head into its helmet as hard as she could.  
She knew how strong they were; she’d nearly been killed by them more than once. She had absolutely no intention of letting the creature gain it’s senses back, so she drew her free hand back and drove her thumb into the creature’s eye.  
The Kind screamed in its strange way as thick black blood began to run down Riichi’s hand. The desperate woman never lost her grip on its gun hand, and she pulled her thumb back and smashed her bloodied fist down onto the creature’s cannon arm.  
The sharp sound of cracking bone met her ears as the creature screamed once more. The chances of it being able to rally were slim, but Riichi wasn’t willing to take any chances at all.  
She flung the creature to the ground and slammed her bare knee into its throat. The edge of the Kind’s helmet cut into her knee deeply, but she barely felt it as she repeated the movement with a loud grunt.  
Dazed and pain shocked, the last infiltrator tried to move as it felt it’s helmet being ripped off it’s head. The last thing it remembered seeing was the woman standing over it, then, as she brought the armor down onto it’s head, there was only darkness.

“We should probably get this out of the way, Riichi. One of the side effects of drinking that compound was… uh… well, you grew a penis.”  
“I gathered as much,” The girl replied quietly as she felt the weight of her male parts. “So… am I a man or a woman?”  
The voice was silent for a moment, “Both?”  
Riichi limped down the corridor slowly. The voice that had been helping her had instructed her to go to the nearest supply cache in hope that she could find some better equipment.  
“Were you expecting this at all?”  
The voice paused once more, “I wasn’t expecting anything. Literally anything that could or would have happened to you would have surprised me just as much as you surviving. Honestly, as strange as this, it’s definitely not a worse case scenario. I just… I can’t even imagine how you feel about it.”  
“I feel nothing about it,” the hybrid girl replied as she rounded a corner. Several cool white lights guided her way, which was a step up from the garish red emergency lights she’d had to navigate through before. “My gender is of no importance to me, even if I am now both genders.”  
“You may not feel that way about it once you get your memories back, but okay. As far as I can tell from your biological readouts, you’re fully functional as a male, and even though they cut out your uterus and ovaries, there’s a possibility that your body might try to grow them back at some point.”  
Riichi thought about what the voice had said before venturing, “You’re female?”  
The voice chuckled, “Vaguely. Yes, I suppose you could call me that, strictly speaking.”  
A strange, distant itching began to buzz in the back of the girl’s head once more. It was a feeling much like the one she’d experienced earlier, only this time it seemed to be mounting into something painful.  
“Gnh...what…” she halted her steps as she fell to her good knee. The gash on her injured knee had stopped bleeding, but it was bad enough to impede her walking.  
“Riichi, what’s wrong? Your brain waves are fluctuating like crazy again…”  
The girl’s head began to throb as she closed her eyes, “Someone… something… I…” suddenly the pain disappeared completely and she exhaled sharply. For a brief, fleeting second it seemed like she was about to remember something extremely important, but instead she was left only with a gnawing, itching uncertainty. It was the closest thing she’d ever experienced to real emotion, and she felt like crying.  
“You okay?”  
The girl nodded once, “You are… hiding something from me… aren’t you?”  
The voice didn’t reply for nearly a full minute, “No, not hiding, Riichi… withholding. I don’t know how much information you want or how much will be good for you right now, but…”  
“Are there survivors?” The girl asked quickly, cutting the voice off mid sentence.  
“Riichi, I don’t…”  
“Are there survivors?!” The hybrid girl shouted, and her heated query echoed down the hall. Her eyes widened slightly, as if she were surprised by her own outburst.  
“Yes… a few staff in some of the other wings, some security units, and some of the subjects like you.”  
“Where is the closest subject?”  
In this wing, but…”  
“You said that the virus might have killed them already, so how is the subject still alive?” Riichi asked with obvious distrust.  
The voice sighed, “I don’t know. I’m working on getting access to all of the cameras in the facility, but it’s slow going. Look, the last thing I want is for you to distrust me. I’m happy that you’re starting to question me; it means that you’re gaining your memories back quickly, but if you want to survive, then…”  
“What is the point?” Riichi threw her hands up in exasperation as her knee flared up. “To escape by myself to any place not here? And do what?”  
Again, the voice was silent for a long while, “That’s up to you.”  
“Why do you care what happens to me?” The exasperated girl asked tiredly. She was confused and angry, though she scarcely knew why.  
“I care because I care, let’s leave it at that.”  
She pouted her lips, obviously dissatisfied with the answer, “I’m going to talk with the subject, where is it?”  
“Riichi, I don’t think that’s…”  
The girl began to walk again, “I’m doing it with or without your help. If I die, so be it, but if your intention is to get me off this station only so I can rot somewhere else in isolation than I reject your plan. If there are others like me here than there may be a chance that I can save them. Do I have the ability to do that?”  
“Honestly, I don’t know. In theory, yes, but…”  
“That’s good enough for me. If these subjects are even half as powerful as everyone seems to think I am, then our chances of surviving this will increase if there’s more of us. Both the scientists and the Kind will kill us on sight, and I can’t bear the thought of leaving them here to die.”  
“Why do you care so much?” The voice asked gently, returning her question calmly.  
“I… I don’t know,” the girl admitted as she slogged forward, “I care because I care.”

“Is this it?”  
Riichi faced a small hatch in the side of the hall. She hadn’t seen or heard any sign of the Kind, save for several dead bodies she’d seen on the way through. It seemed that she’d killed most of the ones that had gotten into the wing before it was locked down, but she still planned to be careful.  
“Yes. Put your hand on the panel and I’ll interact with the door controls for you.”  
She did as she was told and the door slid open silently a moment later. She dragged herself inside, and it closed behind her as an array of bright lights kicked on overhead.  
The room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, but several firearms and crates sat against one wall. It appeared that most of the more serious firepower had been carried away, but a few pistols and rifles remained as well as an assortment of ammunition.  
“Dig around in these crates and see if you can find something more suitable to wear,” the voice told her.  
She nodded and flipped open one of the crates. It was all military gear; cheap, standard issue clothing and pads, but she gathered some of it up anyway and began to strip.  
Her skin was pale and clammy as she peeled the tattered shirt off, and she winced as she pulled down the shorts and was forced to look at her new, genital edition.  
“It’s not that bad,” she blandly after a moment of staring. It seemed that her body has somehow forced several years of growth into several minutes, and there, right above her smooth labia, hung a flaccid, uncircumsized penis and a matching scrotum.  
“Well, you’re nothing if not unflappable,” the voice remarked with a hint of humor.  
Riichi grit her teeth as she raised her bad knee and eased into a fresh pair of undergarments, “What is the point of being alarmed? You told me the cost of drinking the compound and I chose to drink it. This seems like a small consequence.”  
“I suppose your stoicism lends itself well to you not dying here,” the voice replied. “Since you’re so hell bent on trying to save the remaining subjects here, I suppose I should tell you that I just got access to the cameras in front of the Haku door.”  
“What is that?” Riichi asked as she pulled on an undershirt and grabbed a padded vest.  
“It’s another mahjong term, I believe. The scientists here lovingly decided to name each major experiment after one of the wind or dragon tiles; Haku is supposed to be the white dragon.”  
“I see,” the girl secured the padding around her chest and dug around in the box, “No shoes.”  
“There’s a dead researcher a few doors down who might have something that will fit you. Unless you’re adverse to looting a corpse.”  
“I’m not adverse to anything.”  
“Good. then I should also tell you that there are five Kind trying to get through the Haku door.”  
“Five?” Riichi pursed her lips and looked around the room. “These weapons won’t help much. It seems that their armor is highly resistant to traditional projectiles, but…” she stopped as she saw a box sitting on the ground. Her eyes twitched slightly as something blurry came into her vision, and a small yellow square began to form around the box.  
“Riichi, what’s happening?”  
“I...I’m not sure,” the girl replied quietly as she stared at the box. One moment, she had no idea what it was or what it contained, the next, she simply knew. A line of strange text showed up beneath the yellow square, and, after another blur passed, it seemed to translate itself into something she could understand.  
“My eyes are doing something strange…” Riichi commented she scrutinized the writing that had somehow magically shown up in her vision. “Eight bore, nitro-max, depleted uranium, anti-personnel round.” She paused, unsure of what most of that meant, “I can read the package without actually having to read it; it seems to be coming up into my vision on its own.”  
“Fascinating…” the voice came into her head, “It seems like the cannon is actually trying to integrate with you...and it's succeeding. Not only are you able to use it without killing yourself, but it's foreign systems are being adopted by your biology. One of the reasons humans can’t use it is because it’s too hard on their neurology; it tries to make a direct link with the user’s nervous system in order to display tiny bits of information directly into their brain that shows up as visual input.”  
Riichi frowned, “I'm not sure I understand.”  
“Keep digging around and see what else you can find.”  
The girl did, “Why do you sound so excited?”  
The voice chuckled, “You seem to defy any and all expectations. The Kind equip themselves to fight in many words across many different terrains; the cannon can allegedly fire any round that fits into the barrel. I guess their engineers hated the idea of running out of ammunition. Practically anything that fits through the back will probably work. Those cartridges, for instance…”  
“What about this?” Riichi pulled out a small, torpedo shaped cylinder and stared at it. Once more, some text came into her vision, “Mark seven, 20 millimeter, plasma grenade.”  
“Better. Let's see what else we can find. You’ve got to find a better way to kill these things than your bare hands.”

The squad leader was dressed differently than the other four. It’s armor was a steely purple, and it’s helmet was slightly more ornate.   
It paced calmly back and forth, glancing here and there as two of its command continued to crack the lock on the door. The door itself was fairly large, about the size of a safe door, and currently it was sealed off as tightly and securely as any door could be. It’s matte, smooth surface shined dully in emergency lights as the two grunts worked on small, portable computers that looked like holographic tablets.  
Across from the hackers and past the squad leader, two other Kind patrolled the entrance to the room, both of them peering down the darkened hall.  
One of the grunts working on the computer made a sound, and the other adjacent to it looked up. They began to speak with one another in a low, guttural language that was so unlike anything the human tongue could produce that it sounded more like static. The squad leader stepped over to the other two and one of them showed him (assuming the creature was male) what was on the screen. He grunted, a sound that implied that he was less than happy about their progress, and he was about to say something when a sharp sound cracked behind him.  
Poomfk!  
The sound echoed throughout the entrance way, and the squad leader attempted to dive to the side, but something exploded into him, sending him and the other two Kind to be thrown backwards in a fiery, purple ball of flame.  
The squad leader's head crashed against the ground as it felt its body being singed by something several times hotter than fire. He lost nearly all of his senses, save for his sight, and as his body crumpled he witnessed a muted firefight.  
His two remaining soldiers fired their cannons into the corridor, only to met with silence. A moment later, a figure darted from the shadows. It was low and lithe, female, perhaps, and it dove forward, twisting its body before sliding on the smooth floor. The human (it certainly looked human) slid past both soldiers and raised its weapon, firing some sort of shot round into one of the soldier's legs. The soldier went down, and while the other was raising its cannon to fire, the female slipped another round of shot into the chamber of her own arm cannon and blasted the soldier in the face.  
The most peculiar thing about it, the downed squad leader realized, was that the female seemed to be using their own weapon against them. The idea of a human being able to use their standard issue arm had been written off for years, so much so that their leading scientists weren’t concerned about the humans attempting to reverse engineer it.  
Regardless, the human was making quick work of his squad. His soldiers struggled valiantly, but the woman loaded another round of shot and finished off the first one she’d shot; emptying the cartridge almost point blank into the soldier’s throat. The other was clutching desperately at its own face, probably struggling just to breath…  
The squad leader could hardly move, let alone fight. He had no intention of allowing himself to be killed so easily, however, and through sheer force of will he managed to slowly yet shakily raise his cannon towards the lethal fighter…

“Riichi! Behind y…”  
Just as the girl pulled the trigger on the last remaining soldier, she heard the voice scream at her. There was a loud sound at her side, then a tremendous force pushing her sideways, lifting her away from the ground and slamming into her.  
She skittered a few few feet as she felt her clothes beginning to burn away. There was only heat for a long moment, followed by a slow, throbbing pain.  
“Riichi!” The voice came into her head, “Are you alive? Can you hear me?”  
“I can hear you...calm down,” the hybrid woman groaned as she managed to lift her head.  
She turned towards the direction the shot had come from and saw the squad leader staring at her punitively. His arm was sitting limply in front of him, and he clearly didn't have the energy to fire another shot.  
The woman took a deep breath and surveyed her right arm. The shot had hit her squarely behind her shoulder blade, leaving a charred hole in her clothing and a nasty set of deep burns. She tried moving her arm, but stopped immediately when a flash of excruciating pain shot down her spine.  
“He's still alive,” Riichi stood slowly and almost tripped as she moved towards her prostrate attacker.  
“No one said they weren't tough bastards,” the voice replied, “Can you move your arm?”  
“Barely, and not without a great amount of pain.” She replied as she used her left hand to reach into the dump pouch she wore at her hip. She brought the DU cartridge to her face and opened her mouth widely before shoving it rim forward between her teeth.  
The squad leader watched the sight with no noticeable fear. Riichi twisted her arm and lowered the cartridge into the back of the cannon's chamber, then opened her mouth and let it slide in.  
“You could just kick him in the face a few times,” the voice told her.  
“No...I don't want my shoes to get dirty.”

Fifteen minutes later, Riichi was standing in front of the door. The pain in her shoulder was growing worse, and her mouth was beginning to become very dry. It was much like what she’d experienced when she’d woken up after drinking the compound, but she said nothing as the mysterious voice continued to work at getting the door open.  
“The system keeping this door closed is separate from the rest, much like yours was,” the voice said after a while. “I tried to spare you the pain of interacting with it physically, but if you’re still insisting on saving the subject, you’ll have to put your hand on the panel like last time.”  
Riichi nodded tiredly. It seemed that pain had become her new normal. “Where’s the hatch?”  
“Look on the bottom left hand side of the far wall; there’s probably an access hatch there.”  
The girl did as she was told and took several slow steps towards the wall. She set her jaw as she crouched and used her left hand to feel around for the panel. After finding it, she lifted it upwards and was met with the same sort of surreal mirror she’d seen in the control room.  
“Same as before; put your palm on it and I’ll access it directly through you. With any luck, it won’t take as long as it did last time.”  
Again, Riichi said nothing as she attempted to place her right hand on the panel. She tried moving her arm, but found it to be completely unresponsive, so she took hold of her wrist and grunted as she pulled her arm forcefully towards the panel.  
“Riichi, what are you doing? You can use your other hand, you know.”  
“No…” the girl said through grit teeth, “This arm is already damaged; why would I want to damage both?”  
“Good point.”  
Once she’d sufficiently pushed her palm down onto the panel, the girl braced herself.  
Interestingly, as the heat increased, she felt little pain. Her nerve endings were probably shot, and though there was a bit of a tingle, it was nothing like what she’d felt the first time.  
“There, done!” The voice told her quickly after several moments had passed, “Pull your hand away.”  
She did do, and when she lifted it she smelled something peculiar: her own burning skin. She examined her hand as her throat became dry, and she croaked, “My body is trying to heal itself rapidly,” she said, more to herself than to the voice, “Will I dehydrate to death?”  
“At this rate, the possibility is very real. I don’t know how these new powers of yours work, but I can see your vitals and they are dropping rapidly. Perhaps we should try to get you some treatment before…”  
“No…” Riichi said flatly as she stood. “If the subject is still alive then I may be able to save it.”  
The voice sighed, “Very well. The door is unlocked. I’ll open it for you, but I have no idea what you’re going to find in there. Even though I have access to the systems files, that doesn’t mean I can read them. Ninety percent of the information is encrypted, and…”  
“Open the door.”  
“Yes, you’re majesty,” the voice replied with amusement.  
Riichi hobbled to the large steel door as it’s two sides parted. She was immediately met with a blinding white light, and it took her several seconds to adjust to it.  
The first thing Riichi noticed was the large, glass wall that stood between the door and the room within. The room beyond the wall appeared to be fully furnished with modern furniture. Literally everything in the room was white, and on one side of the room sat three very large tanks that seemed to hold some sort of liquid.  
The last thing Riichi’s eyes settled onto was the human in the middle of the room… if it could even be called that.  
The woman (for she had to have been female) was fair skinned and had long, straw blonde hair. She was sitting down on the floor, crossed legged, and she had something in her mouth.  
Riichi’s eyes were still adjusting to the garish white light, and she took a few steps closer.  
“Riichi, I’m accessing the cameras in the room. I can get to them now that the door is…” the voice trailed off.  
Riichi blinked as she got a good look at the woman. For a moment, it appeared that she was holding two billowy pillows in front of her chest, but upon further inspection, the girl could see that they were actually the woman’s breasts.   
Smooth, bare, and flawless, the woman’s breasts were so massive that they spilled well past her torso and almost down to her waist. They were almost as wide and full as they were long, and currently, one of them was flipped upwards and being sucked on by the woman herself.  
“Oh god…” the voice said quietly in Riichi’s head, “What did they do to her?”  
The hybrid woman stepped up to the clear glass wall and attempted to open the door. To her surprise, it actually opened, and she stepped further into the room, “Close the door behind me,” she whispered to the voice.  
Trusting that the guiding voice would do her bidding, Riichi looked over the woman even more closely as she approached. The woman’s head was down and her eyes were closed, and she appeared to be… drinking her own breast milk. The woman had cow ears jutting up out of the top of her head and a tail, and though she was thickly built, everything else about her appeared to be human.  
“H… hello…” Riichi’s cracked voice called out to the woman.  
The cowgirl raised her head suddenly and looked at Riichi with alarm, “No!” She screamed as she attempted to scoot backwards, “Shtay...mmm...away...mmm...from me!”  
Even while the woman spoke, she was still drinking her breast milk between words, and Riichi shook her head slowly, “I… came to help you,” She began as she winced. She didn’t understand her motives for coming to the subject, let alone how to save her, but something inside her was urging her forward, something purposeful that she couldn’t pinpoint. “You have a virus,” she continued as she stopped advancing. “I have a cure.”  
The cowgirl shook her head wildly, “No… you…” she stopped as her eyes widened and she looked over Riichi. Her mouth never stopped moving over her nipple, but she appeared to have a moment of clarity, “You’re a...subject…”  
“Yes,” the girl nodded as she took a step closer. “Riichi. I don’t have any of my memories, and I fought hard to get to you. You can tell me what you know after I save you.”  
The woman looked Riichi over with incredulous fear, “You look like...mmm... you’re about to pass...mmm... out any moment…”  
She felt like she was going to, but she shook her head, “How are you still alive?”  
The woman rocked forward and gathered up her gigantic breast, switching from one huge nipple to the other, “My milk heals,” she said quickly as she sucked desperately, “Keeping...mmm… myself alive…”  
Riichi took a deep breath, “How is it possible for me to give her the cure I’ve developed?”  
The voice took several seconds to respond, “If there’s any chance at all, you’d have to give her something of yours that has a concentrated amount of protein.”  
“What would that be?” Riichi asked quickly.  
“Blood… she’d have to drink it,” the voice replied slowly. “Either that or… oh....”  
“What?”  
“Intercourse.”  
Riichi blinked, “What is that?”  
“Fuck her.”  
“What does that mean?”  
“Oi…” the voice sighed once more. “Do you remember how reproduction works?”  
The hybrid girl strained to recall as she felt her consciousness begin to fade, “Life… babies… something… sex?”  
“Yes, sex. Do you remember what sex is?”  
“The gender of a person and or the act of...cop...copo…”  
“Copulation. You’re memories are returning quickly, but nobody calls it that,” the voice chuckled. “If she’ll let you, you put your penis into her vagina and you try to enjoy it for a little while.”  
“I… don’t understand,” the hybrid woman replied with slight frustration. Her mind was moving in a thousand different directions, but she couldn’t see to settle on any one thing.  
“Put your penis in her mouth and make her suck on it,” the voice said with exasperation. “You’ve got so little moisture in your body that you might not even be able to ejaculate, so you may need to drink some of her milk if she’ll let you.”  
The concept of embarrassment or prudence was unknown to Riichi, so she nodded, “If that’s going to cure her, I’ll do it.”  
All the while, the cowgirl was staring at Riichi in confusion, “Who… are you… talking to?”  
The girl took a deep breath, “I don’t have much time,” she said slowly as she almost fell over. “I have a cure inside of my body that can cure you, as well. In order for me to give it to you, I’ll need to drink some of your milk.”  
The strange, mutated woman looked bewildered for a moment before she closed her fist, “How is that...possible? I’m not… sure…”  
“We don’t have time for this!” Riichi took a step forward, “Don’t you see, if neither one of us…” her words were cut off as she tumbled forward and collapsed.  
“Riichi… stay with me, here…” the voice inside of her head said distantly.  
But that was the last thing the hybrid woman heard before she passed out.

Sweet...this is...sweet?  
She was so thirsty, beyond parched, really, but whatever was pouring into her mouth was lingering on her taste buds and causing her to remember something forgotten.  
What is sweet? She swallowed more and more of the warm liquid, her swollen throat feelings more soothed with every gulp.  
Cake? Chocolate? Sugar? No… she realized. She could remember the words, but not what they meant. She had no idea what cake was, only that it was sweet: so sweet must be something separate from anything else.  
Whatever it was, it the most pleasurable thing she’d ever experienced. The texture, the taste, the closeness and the warmth. It was a far cry from the darkness of her tank, and she felt her eyes beginning to grow hot and wet.  
Slowly, her memory of how she got there came back to her. She was drinking deeply of something, endlessly, it seemed, and she was breathing hard through her nose and trembling. Something soft and warm was moving over her, and a peculiar fragrance hit her senses. It was… a feminine smell, somehow gentle, and yet something about it was…  
As Riichi returned to consciousness, she began to register several things. There was plenty of light where she was; she could tell even through closed eyes. Her lips were moving and she was opening her mouth. The warm liquid was dripping into it and she was drinking as much as she could. It was revitalizing her with a speed and effectiveness that seemed impossible, and her entire body was tingling hotly.  
What is this feeling? I’m...excited?  
That was when she realized something else.  
Something foreign was jutting up from between her legs.  
She opened her eyes suddenly and her trembling increased. Above her, directly over her face, were two gigantic, heaving breasts. Somewhere past the massive canyon of cleavage, she could make out a bit of the cowgirl’s face. It was clear that the woman was straining to stay upright, and given her gaunt and grey expression it seemed like it was taking everything in her to stay conscious.  
The hybrid woman swallowed hard and tried to understand what was happening to her. Her male part, the one she’d just grown, was pulsing and throbbing painfully. She remembered that she was supposed to be doing something, that she’d come into the room for a very specific purpose, something that the voice had told her had something to do with…  
Riichi’s eyes widened as she remembered. The mutated woman, whoever she was, was sacrificing herself to save her. Riichi had come to give her the cure, but instead, she was leeching off the woman like some sort of parasite.  
A myriad of emotions filled the hybrid woman, none of which she could understand or put names to, but she remembered what the voice had said about protein. She stirred, willing her limbs to respond to her, before she was rewarded with a small gasp from the woman.  
“You… you’re alive,” the cowgirl said quietly. “I’m so…” the woman trailed off as she stared at Riichi’s throbbing penis, “...glad.”  
Riichi stood shakily and turned towards the woman. She realized that the woman was quite beautiful, despite her ears and tail. Even those, she realized, were strangely appealing in a non traditional way, but of course, she had no idea what traditional was. All she knew was that she was feeling worlds better, but the woman looked worse for it.  
“What...what did they do to you?” The cowgirl asked in dismay as she continued to stare.  
Riichi looked down between her legs and her eyes grew heavy, “So this is what happens…” she swallowed hard as she tried to analyze the thing twitching between her legs. It wasn’t huge, perhaps five inches long, but it was much larger than it had been when she’d last looked at it.  
“I can save you if I put this in your mouth,” Riichi said slowly as she took a step forward.  
The cowgirl froze as her face flushed, “No! How can that save anyone?! You’re just…” she fell into a fit of coughing and was unable to finish her sentence.  
“It’s either this or blood,” Riichi said firmly, with only a hint of empathy in her tone. “Would you rather drink my blood? I’ll draw it for you if that’s the case.”  
“No…” the woman began to cry.  
“Would you rather die?” Riichi asked candidly and genuinely as her eyes widened slightly. She hadn’t considered that the subject might prefer death, she simply assumed otherwise given the state she’d found the woman in.  
The woman shook her head after a long moment, “I can feel it trying to kill me. My body is resisting, but eventually…” she glanced at Riichi’s penis once more and nodded, “I’m not sure I can bring you around… it’s been so long since I’ve been with anyone… and certainly not like this.”  
Riichi took a deep breath, “I don’t know what you mean by that, but your face is getting more and more gray by the second. I’ll be upset if you die after I’ve gone through so much trouble, and you did revive me.” She looked down again and pressed her lips together grimly, “You seem to know more about this than me, so anything you can do to…”  
“Come here,” the woman said softly as she coughed once more.  
Riichi did as she was asked, and she gasped when the woman reached out and wrapped her hand around her member.  
The woman began to stroke Riichi slowly, and she sighed as she lifted one of her breasts to her mouth, “I’m almost out of milk for now, but there might be just enough to…”  
Riichi’s legs became shaky as she felt the pleasure creeping up her body. She watched the woman opened her mouth widely and shove her own nipple inside of it, and something about the sight made her want to explode, “What… what is this…” she grit her teeth and gasped once more as the woman tightened her grip.  
The Cowgirl didn’t answer, mostly because she was too busy nursing on herself, but she began to stroke faster and harder, using her slender fingers to hold Riichi’s entire length.  
“I… how…” Riichi’s eyes began to water as her mouth fell open. Not just her penis, but her entire body was tingling everywhere. She felt her nipples harden as her testicles began to tighten. A great pressure was beginning to build up inside of her, but she had no idea how to expel it, and just when it seemed like the sensation couldn’t intensify, it would build again on itself.  
This is… pleasure? Riichi thought distantly. It seemed both foreign and familiar at the same time, and it felt so good that it was bordering on torture.  
All the while, the cowgirl was sucking on her own tit, her lips making an almost perfect seal around her nipple in an attempt to drain herself of every drop of her healing milk.  
“Something is happening…” Riichi panted as she struggled to remain standing, “I can’t…”  
“Riichi,” the voice rang out in her head, “In her mouth! Finish in her mouth!”  
“I don’t know what finish means!” Riichi shouted as she threw her head back, “Stop assuming that I…”  
The cowgirl let go of Riichi and opened her mouth. Her nipple made an audible popping sound as the suction was broken, and the woman leaned forward and shoved the hybrid girl’s entire length into her mouth, all the way down to the hilt.  
“Oh,” Riichi said flatly as she looked down at the woman. She felt suddenly calm as her body reached the point of no return, and for one fleeting second she felt like everything in the universe was just fine. She looked down and admired the woman who was attempting to swallow her whole, and she blinked once, “I think I remember what finish means now…”  
The second of clarity disappeared all at once as Riichi screamed. Heat flowed like boiling magma through her, and the soft warmth of the woman’s wet mouth was overpowering. Something was pouring out of her, shooting, really, and the cowgirl was drinking it greedily. Seconds felt like hours as the bioengineered woman emptied herself into the stranger’s mouth, and when the pleasure finally subsided, Riichi crumpled to the ground on her knees.  
The mutated woman closed her eyes and swallowed several more times before she hugged her arms to her body.  
Riichi caught her breath and reached out to the woman slowly, “Are you all right?”  
The woman nodded slowly before looking up quickly, “I’m fine. I think I’m...starting to feel better.”  
The hybrid girl watched the woman’s face as it turned from gray to white, then from white to light pink.  
Riichi nodded before standing shakily. To her surprise, she fell almost as soon as she found her balance, and her eyes narrowed as she began to feel extremely weak.  
“Oh no…” the giant mammaried woman frowned deeply as she looked at Riichi, “You… you look sick all of the sudden.”  
Riichi’s vision swam, “Hey… voice inside my head… what’s happening?”  
The response was delayed, but the voice answered, “I’m checking your vitals now… um… shit.”  
“Shit, what? That’s a bad thing, right?”  
“Yes, shit is generally a bad thing, unless it’s superseded by the word ‘good’, in which case it can be good shit. But this isn’t; this is bad.”  
Riichi sighed as she began to have trouble breathing, “This feels like before; is this the virus?”  
“It appears so, yes. It seems like you were able to kick your own version of it, but since it’s engineered to be hyper adaptable, you contracted a different version.”  
Riichi growled, “How was I able to give her the cure then?”  
“You didn’t give her the cure, you gave her body the blueprints to create its own cure! I guessed that this might happen, but you were so gungho about the whole thing that it didn’t seem like that information would have stopped you.”  
“What can we do?” Riichi winced.  
“There’s a substation in this room that’s connected to the DNA lab. I’m already working on making you another cocktail, but, like before, god knows what it’s going to do to you. It’s almost guaranteed to kick out this new version of the virus, but something far worse than growing a dick could happen to you.”  
“I’ll take my chances,” Riichi answered quickly as she glanced at the woman who’d just given her an impromptu handjob.  
“While I work on this, ask the subject if her milk is inside of those tanks outside the wall.”  
Riichi nodded weakly and looked up at the woman, “Do they keep your milk in those tanks, there?”  
The woman nodded in turn, “Yes, but I can't leave this room or the collar on my neck will hurt me.”  
The voice in Riichi's head piped up, “Tell her to come closer so you can touch her collar; I can probably deactivate it on my end.”  
“Come here so I can fix it,” Riichi said hoarsely.  
The woman knelt hesitantly before leaving forward, “Like this?”  
Riichi reached out and placed her hand on the smooth collar, “Ready.”  
“One second…” the voice replied. “And...there!”  
The collar made a small whirring sound before it unclamped at the back of the woman's neck. She reached around and tore it away from her neck, and a deep, old scar could be seen beneath it, “Oh my God, I'm…” the cowgirl stared at Riichi with a look that was torn between elation and fear, “Free.”  
“Free but not safe,” Riichi coughed, “Help me to the tanks and help me drink; if we work together we can make it out of here alive.”  
The top heavy woman allowed the hybrid girl to sling her arm around her neck. The woman was surprisingly strong, and Riichi found that she barely had to carry her weight at all.  
“What's your name?” Riichi asked dryly as the two exited the inner room and headed towards the tanks.  
“I can't remember my real name, but the scientists called me Haku,” the woman snickered.  
“What's so funny?” The rapidly declining hybrid girl asked.  
“Nothing. Just...the idea of introducing yourself to someone after you swallow a load of their cum strikes me as funny.”  
Riichi blinked, “What's cum?”


	3. Kazehai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riichi discovers that some problems are bigger... and angrier, than others as she makes her way towards freedom.

You feast on knowledge  
A sumptuous banquet  
Your fealty pledged  
Your ethics tainted

Driving forward  
You stay your course  
Plummeting toward  
A remorseless force

Knowledge destroys those who seek it  
An addiction all its own  
It is not loyal; it keep it secrets  
And everyone disowns

But yet you press, pushing through  
Despite the many warnings  
Love, morality, these are naught to you  
Your goal becomes your glory

Progress, Evolution!  
You use your pretty words  
No fear of retribution  
From the lives that you upturn 

But I do not worry or thirst for justice  
For each will pay their dues  
sooner or later that knowledge you trusted  
will turn to feast on you

 

Cold, sweet and creamy, the once more battered hybrid woman drank deeply from a steel spigot.  
The topless, broad-shouldered cowgirl supported her; her huge, soft breasts pressing up against Riichi as she kept her arms wrapped around her savior's shoulders.  
"Ungh…" Riichi stopped drinking and took a breath as chilled breast milk ran down her chin. She could actively feel her body trying to heal itself, but the new variation of the virus was working even faster than the first, and it seemed almost vengeful.  
"The compound is finished...you can drink it whenever you're ready," the voice in her head told her with a tinge of worry.  
Riichi nodded and gestured to the windowed DNA substation that was set into the wall, "Hey...Haku was your name? Can you...get that drink for me?"  
The cowgirl's tail twitched as her ears wiggled, "Oh, of course!"  
The anthropomorphic woman set Riichi down and jogged to the substation. Larger than life, her bare breasts jiggled and wobbled as they hung down heavily, but the woman was so used to being topless that the motion didn't bother her in the slightest. She opened the small glass door and carefully took up the vial that was there, then made her way back to the woman who'd just saved her, "Here… let me help you."  
Ricchi nodded and opened her mouth as the busty woman cradled her head. Her heart felt like it was going to melt right out of her chest for how fast it was beating, and she knew that she wouldn't have any time to regret her decision if she waited any longer.  
With a tilt of her dainty fingers, the cowgirl tipped the bottle forward and Riichi drank.  
"Grhk!" The broken woman almost choked as her eyes opened widely. The first time, she'd passed out, but it seemed like she was going to have to remain conscious until the volatile compound ran its course.  
"Uh...um…" Haku shook her head and looked down at the smaller woman, her fair features etched with concern, "What can I do? Are you too high? Too low? Can I…"  
"Grgg...unh...ah!" Riichi grit her teeth and screamed as her back arched. Her entire body exploded into sensation, and every nerve was overwhelmed. It wasn't painful, exactly; it was something that transcended pain. It actually felt like her entire genetic code was being rewritten, which struck her as distantly humorous, because that's exactly what was happening.  
"Oh God… what do I do?!" The cowgirl tried to keep her grip on Riichi as the girl writhed. She could feel Riichi skin and muscles expanding and contracting over her hands, and the woman's pupils were beginning to dilate. "I'm sorry, Riichi, I wish I could help... " the poor cowgirl fretted desperately as she continued to watch helplessly. "I really wish I could…" her words trailed off as she blinked.  
Riichi's chest was expanding rapidly. Both of her breasts began to swell beneath her tattered shirt, and the prominent outlines of her nipples pressed through the material as it began to stretch. Meanwhile, her arms and legs began to tighten and harden like a fast drying glue, and her pigmentation began to darken.  
"S,scales?" Haku breathed with bewilderment as she watched steel-like plates form all over Riichi's body. Her breasts continued to grow as well, and they threatened to tear through her thin shirt as the woman groaned and howled.  
Haku was too stunned for words as she watched Riichi's skin tone change from a pale white to a deep gray. Every inch of her skin had hardened, and even her swelling cleavage looked like that of a polished statue's. The cowgirl glanced down at Riichi's legs and her eyes widened even more: Riichi's cock was metallic as well! It had sprung up from her thin shorts and was fully erect and throbbing, but it looked more like a pipe than an actual piece of flesh. Her hips, legs and even her feet and toes, had formed into dense, steel-like plates, and Haku couldn’t keep herself from running her hand over the girl’s arm.  
“Deep breaths, Riichi; you’re starting to normalize,” the voice in her head told her firmly.  
The overwhelmed young woman grit her teeth and began to laugh before she uttered another cry, “N,normalize?! I think...gah! T,that normal stopped being a factor quite a while...ah!”  
Her ears rang as she screamed once more. She squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for another assault, then everything just...stopped. The intensity of her screaming nerves, the shifting of her muscles and skeleton…everything disappeared. It was replaced by a temperature neutral wave of clarity and sharpness, and Riichi opened her eyes suddenly and made a move to get up.  
“Hey, take it easy!” Haku urged her with surprise as she made an attempt to pin the girl down.  
“No, there’s no time for that,” Riichi said cooly as she scrambled to her feet. She looked down at her arms, then in turn, her legs and torso. She was completely covered in some sort of gray colored plate, but it took her a long time to realize that it was actually her skin. While that was odd enough in of itself, she was more concerned with how much her chest had grown, and she growled down at her erection and threw up her hands, “What am I supposed to do about this?”  
Haku blushed hotly as she turned away, “Um… it goes away on it’s own after a little while… from what I remember.”  
“Yes,” the voice in her head piped up, “It’s probably a reaction to your increased blood pressure. Are you feeling any pain at all?”  
“No,” Riichi shook her head and stared at her hands. Nothing about them had changed, save for the color and density of her skin. She attempted to dig her nail into her palm, but found that it was extraordinarily hard; much too hard for her to be able to cut herself. “I feel good,” she added flatly as she took a deep breath. “In fact, I feel pretty amazing.”  
“Good to hear,” the voice replied with satisfaction, “I’m analyzing your new genetic code and it seems like you’ve developed some advanced skin hardening traits. There are a few creatures who have the ability to harden their skin into armor; the Kind, for example, have shown some aptitude for this. There’s a possibility that you may be able to revert it if…”  
“Ah…” Haku squeaked as she pointed at Riichi, “You’re skin… it’s changing back!”  
The hybrid woman blinked at the giant breasted cowgirl and nodded, “I know; I’m trying to turn it back intentionally.” She exhaled sharply and licked her lips as her skin began to return to normal. It wasn’t so much a muscle movement as it was a sort of instinctive mental flex, but she found that she could easily manipulate it if she focused on it properly.  
“No one can say you're not adaptable,” the voice in her head said humorously.  
“It’s going to take me longer to get used to these breasts,” Riich grumbled as she looked down and poked one of her newly grown mammaries. They were easily twice the size they’d been before, and the extra weight there was going to take a bit of adjustment on her part.  
“Your body was made to adapt to its environment and the surrounding subjects. There’s a chance that Haku’s genetics mixed into your own during the change, so that would explain the tits.”  
“The what?” Riichi stretched as she tried to work out all of the kinks in her newly changed body.  
“It’s slang for boobs.”  
“What’s a boob?” Riichi asked aloud with growing confusion.  
Haku flushed, “Who are you talking to?! And why are you talking about boobs?” The cowgirl turned and attempted (fruitlessly) to cover her human udders. “They made me this way; I didn’t ask for this, in fact…”  
“I’m talking to the person who’s guiding me through all this,” Riich cut the woman off as she tapped the side of her head. “I’m assuming a boob is a breast?”  
“You assume correctly. Now, we could stand around and discuss how many hundreds of terms the human race has come up with for a woman’s tits, or we could start planning our next move. Since you’ve decided to hijack whatever plan I may have had for your escape, the next move is yours and I’ll do my best to keep you alive.”  
Riichi looked down at her tattered, now far too small clothes, then looked back up at Haku.  
“How many subjects are in this wing, do you know?”  
Haku had more or less given up on trying to cover herself, and she shrugged slowly, “I only know what I’ve heard the scientists talking about. They thought I was too dumb to understand them and pretending to be stupid is how I survived to this point,” she added. “Apparently, there’s some sort of monster named Kazehai on the other side of the wing. Besides me, I think you were the only other in this part of the facility.”  
Riichi nodded, “We could probably use a monster if we want to get out of here alive.” She paused, “How is it that you remember so much and I remember almost nothing?”  
Haku offered the hybrid woman a sad look, “I don’t remember as much as you think I do. I was captured somewhere… I remember that. I remember that I had a family somewhere, but…” she looked down solemnly, “I can’t remember them.”  
For the first time since she could remember, Riich felt a tinge of relatability and even pity for the woman, “Do you have any desire to remember?”  
The cowgirl nodded firmly, “Yes. I wanna get off this stupid planet and look for my family. Just because I can’t remember who they are doesn’t mean that I can’t remember the feeling of being close to someone. I’ll do whatever I can to help, but first…” she frowned, “Can we please find me some clothes?”  
Riichi looked down at her own outfit once more. She noticed that she actually had cleavage now, and she slipped her index finger between her breasts in an almost scientific, totally disconnected way, “Yes, I suppose I could use a change of clothing as well.”

Doctor Gelman Tippman paced back and forth across the darkened doorway as the men around him checked their equipment. He’d been one of the few scientists to respond with more than just panicked dismay when the Kind attack landed, and currently he was holed up in the northmost wing with half a dozen facility soldiers.  
“Stupid fool,” Gelman muttered to himself as he ran his fingers through his short, curly hair. “I knew he would release that god damned virus!” The man seethed as he sunk his hands deep into his pockets.  
The worst part of it, was that he was convinced that professor Roberts was dead. That part of the facility, the Riichi project, would have been the first to suffer, and they were hit before any of the barricades had been put up.  
The doctor wondered distantly if Ricchi had survived, but the thought was broken by a resounding, metallic slam.  
“Let me out, fuckers!” An enraged, femine voice shrieked from behind a colossal blast door. The outburst was followed by another series of deep, forceful thuds.  
The soldiers looked up at the door nervously, and one of them tightened his combat helmet, “Hey, Tippman, you sure this door will hold her?”  
The scientist frowned at the door as whatever creature that lay behind it screamed angrily, “There’s no way she can get through…”  
“There’s something coming through the corridor,” The commander of the surviving squad raised his hand suddenly as he looked down at his wrist. There was a small computer clasped around it with a screen that was little bigger than a traditional watch face, and he shook his head as winced and brought it closer to his face, “It’s not the Kind...something else.”  
Well trained and on edge, every soldier readied their weapons and took positions behind the crude barricades they’d made for themselves. All the while, the pounding at the gigantic door continued, and Gelman scowled, “What else could be out there? Nothing could have survived that onslaught, and if Roberts was still alive he would have…”  
“Open this fuckin’ door right now!” An earth rending screech drowned out the scientist’s words as each soldier turned.  
“I’ll kill you all! You bastards are just waiting around for me to die!” The door began to creak and moan under the weight of some extreme pressure, and every soldier backed away and pointed their guns at the opening.  
“Gelman, do something!” The commander shouted as he flipped on a laser sight.  
Gelman Tippman barely heard the man. His mouth fell open and he stood transfixed as the reinforced steel door groaned. His creation was… forcing the door open. Literal tons of pressure would be required to so much as budge the oversized door, but it seemed that the locking mechanism had come to it’s breaking point, and all the scientist could do was marvel at his accomplishment.  
“Tippman, what the hell is wrong with you?! Do you want to di…”  
An otherworldly growl emanated from behind the door as the locking mechanism emitted a high pitched squeak. Metal on metal, the door was slowly opened with a sickening grinding sound, and fear reflected in each soldiers’ eyes.  
“You can’t stop her...nothing but the virus can…” Gelman murmured as a set of wide hands wiggled their way through the opening in the door.  
“You think this door can stop me! Fuck you! Fuck everyone, you sick fucks! I’m gonna crush all of you!”  
The blast door held for several more seconds before it was thrown open with a mechanical crunch.   
“Fire at will!” The squad leader screamed as he suppressed his trigger finger.  
Bright orange blossoms of light exploded in the red darkness as every armed man opened fire. Within seconds, the guttural cries of a soldier echoed through the sound of gunfire. In the darkness, a two hundred pound man went flying like a ragdoll into one of the barricades, and the men backed up quickly as they continued to fire.  
Gelman stood off to the side, ironically safe and unnoticed, since he’d been so close to the door. In the glow of the emergency lights, he could dimly make out his creation. Her beautiful face was outlined every half second by a burst of light, and his heart ached for her. After everything she’d been through, everything she’d endured, she was still so strong, and even the virus was having a difficult time taking her down.  
The object of such intense fear appeared to be nothing more than a normal human woman, only the woman was nearly eighteen feet tall and had fiercely red eyes. Her hair was short and dark and her features were sharp, but her expression was twisted with agony and rage. The only clothing she wore was a skin tight tank made out of some sort of stretchy material and a pair of shorts that went down to her thighs.   
The woman turned monster grit her teeth together as she uttered an animalistic scream and advanced.  
More soldiers were tossed aside like scarecrows before the creature lifted one of them and began to use them as a weapon. Bullets sank into the man as he begged for his life, and even as he died spitting up blood the creature continued to use his body as a limp club, swinging it wildly before throwing it into oncoming gunfire.  
The fight lasted for seventeen seconds, but to the scientist, it felt like a wonderful, slow moving film. She was exceeding every expectation he or anyone on his team had of her, and even though dozens of shots had connected with her skin she looked only a little scathed and had obviously not been slowed down.  
A bare fisted punch killed the last soldier; the series of hard knuckles bigger than his entire head. It connected with the man like an oncoming train, rendering the helmet useless against the incredible impact. The man was dead before he hit the ground, and the giant woman turned and glowered in the darkness as she panted.  
“You!” Her eyes fell upon Gelman and her breath caught as her eyes shimmered with depthless hatred, “Die!”  
The massive woman lurched forward with a growl, and Gelman snapped out of his dream. He raised his wrist to his mouth and shouted, “Subdue subject!”  
The giant girl choked as she tripped and fell forward. The strange collar around her neck lit up as she cried out, and every nerve in her body pulsed with excruciating pain.  
“I’m the only reason you’re still alive,” Gelman stepped up to the giant girl and placed his hand on her forehead as she shuddered and grunted, “I didn’t do this to you... it’s not my fault.”  
The experiment growled as large tears began to form in the corners of her eyes, “Fuck you… die fucker…” she whimpered bitterly, “Burn in hell forever you cock suckin...ahh!”  
“Stop that,” Gelman pressed a few things on his wrist computer and sighed, “You’ll only kill yourself faster. If we can get you down to the genetics room then we might be able to save you.”  
The giant girl began to weep as the pain became more intense. Unlike a normal human, her capacity to experience nervous feedback had been increased, but her body wouldn’t go into shock no matter how much trauma it faced. She willed herself to pass out, but unconsciousness eluded her as she began to tremble, “Let me die… please, let me die…”  
“I can’t do that,” Gelman took a deep breath as he looked over the massacre his subject had created.  
“Why?” She replied distantly as most of her rage disappeared.  
“Because, Kaze… I’m in love with you.”  
The giant girl’s pupils dilated as she tried to process the unbelievable information. Her stomach knotted as a coldness ran down her spine, and she clenched her fists slowly, “Love?” She whispered as her fists tightened. Her nails began to dig into her palms as she tried to understand the inexplicable rage that was beginning to grow inside of her. It was pervasive and breathtaking, and she struggled to breath as she shifted her weight to one side, “Love?” She repeated in confusion, “That’s not… this isn’t love…” her voice began to crack, “I don’t remember what it is, but it’s not this… this is…” she made a move to stand as she placed her fist on the ground.  
“Kaze, stay down!” Gelman barked at her desperately as he hovered his finger over his smartwatch.  
The woman didn’t. Instead, she began to stand.  
The scientist’s eyebrows narrowed as he huffed, “Fine, if that’s the way you want it,” he pressed another button.  
The giant clenched her teeth as an inordinate amount of pain spread throughout her joints. Her nerves screamed, and it felt like ten thousand tiny needles were stabbing her insides, but still she rose, not immune to it, but despite it.  
Gelman took a step back as she shook his head in dismay, “Kaze, no! You don’t know what you’re doing! I can save you!”  
The woman stood to her full height and took a slow step toward the man. Gelman pressed another button and she closed her eyes tightly for a moment as a sensation of being on fire coursed over the surface of her skin, “I’d rather die than be saved by you,” she panted as she reached toward him, “I’d rather meet you in hell where I can kill you over and over again for all eternity, you twisted mother fucker…”  
Gelman shook his head and scrambled backwards as he fell to the ground, “Kaze, no, I…” he felt her hands around his chest as he tried to press another button, and he wheezed as he heard his own ribs breaking slowly, “Kaz...e...I… Lo…”  
“No!” the woman raised the man to her face as she lifted him off the ground and bellowed, "You don't get to say that to me! Never again! Never!"  
The last thing Gelman Tippmann ever heard was the sound of his own sternum crushing his heart.

“Well, that was intense.”  
The voice inside Riichi’s head commented dryly as Riichi watched the scene from a distance.  
In the darkness, several yards beyond the dead soldiers and barricades, Riichi stood quietly beside her now clothed busty new friend, who was cowering behind her slightly and covering her face. The two had found another cache of supplies (thanks to the mysterious voice) though the only thing that fit the cowgirl with any comfort was a set of plain white bedsheets. Riichi herself had found a female soldier’s outfit that fit her well enough. It was a standard issue, lightweight composite plate, complete with a chest piece and padded fatigues. She’d opted out of the helmet and the bulky, bullet resistant vest. Her mobility was of utmost importance to her, and besides, she was now able to make her own armor.   
“She took care of the soldiers for us; it’s likely they would have tried to gun us down,” the hybrid woman commented, both to herself and to the cowgirl.  
Haku’s sad, wide eyes gleamed as she watched the giant girl drop the limp body of the researcher she’d just crushed, “That’s horrible… no one should have to endure that kind of suffering.”  
“She’s dying,” the voice that had been guiding Riichi chimed in, though only the hybrid woman could hear her. “The virus is having a hard time putting her down, but it’s only a matter of time before it gets ahold of one of her organs.”  
Riichi took a step forward, “We need her to get out of here; I’m going to do what I did before.”  
Haku let go of the woman and hissed, “Are you crazy? Didn’t you see what she did to the scientist?”  
Riichi had. She’d seen the entire thing, in fact. It was a strange sight to behold, and near the end she felt something akin to pity, though she wasn’t sure what it was. “I’m just going to try to reason with her; stay here.”  
Haku’s cow ears twitched with irritation and worry as she stomped, “Hang on, she’s…”  
“Hello there, don’t attack me, I’m one of the experiments here!” Riichi walked into the red emergency light and waved evenly.  
The giant girl turned towards the sound of the hollering woman and immediately went on the defensive, “Stay the hell away from me! Don’t come any closer!”  
Riichi had a fairly decent concept of what trauma was, but she was still unable to read the room. She continued to move forward, and she raised her arms as a symbol of peace, “I’m not going to hurt you; I just want to talk.”  
“About what?!” The giant girl shouted and growled. “Leave me alone and let me die, or I swear to god I’ll kill you, too!”  
“You want to die?” Riichi asked her honestly as she stopped walking. She was at least a dozen paces away from the much, much larger woman, but for the giant the distance was two or three steps.  
“Yes… there’s nothing here for me and no reason to live,” the woman replied as a matter of fact as she kicked the crushed corpse of Gelman. “If this sickness they put inside of me doesn’t kill me first, the Kind will come for me,” she added with a dark chuckle. She gestured hollowly to the scattering of other bodies, “I wish these stupid fucking guns were powerful enough to blow my brains out; I woulda stood there and let them shoot me.”  
Riichi’s eyes sharpened in the darkness as she looked over the surface of the giant’s skin. She was dotted with tiny, bloody holes everywhere, and a few bullets could be seen smashed and embedded into her. From a distance, the woman had appeared to be bullet proof, but it seemed that she was simply extremely resistant.  
“I could probably kill you with this,” Riichi raised her arm cannon and glanced at it’s smooth, ethereally shiny surface, “It’s a Kind weapon. If I got right up to your head and shot you point blank then...”  
“What the hell do you want?!” The giant scowled. “Are you mocking me?!”  
Riichi blinked, “I’m not sure I have the capacity to mock you. I’m just here to save you, but if you don’t want to be saved, then…”  
The giant laughed, “Save me? For what? I have no desire to live, so…”  
“That can’t be true; evidence points to the contrary.”  
Kaze’s eyes narrowed, “What evidence?”  
“You broke out of your cell. If you’d really wanted to die you would have stayed there and let the virus take you. If what you say is true and the Kind will overrun the entire facility, then these men were doomed from the start.”  
The nearly twenty foot tall woman curled her lips upward as she began to cackle, “Haven’t you ever heard of a thing called revenge? You should know as well as I do, maybe better, the pain they put us through!” The giant’s attitude shifted erratically back to anger, “I know about you; you’re arguably the biggest freak show out of all of us. You’re Roberts’ girl; don’t tell me you wouldn’t have enjoyed ripping his throat out.”  
“Someone else did it for me: one of the Kind,” Riichi replied quickly with a completely straight face. “That’s the one I took this weapon from. I felt no desire to kill him and I wouldn’t have derived any particular pleasure from it.”  
The over sized woman huffed, “How many Kind have you killed?”  
“Enough to know that they’ll get in here eventually. They’re persistent, if nothing else.”  
“So, let’s say you did ‘save me’,” the giant woman said with biting sarcasm, “What’s your plan?”  
“We open the barricades and run right through them.”  
The angry woman stared at Riichi for a long moment. She’d thought it was a joke at first, but it was obvious that the hybrid woman was completely serious, and she couldn’t keep herself from laughing, “Fantastic! And once we do that, assuming we don’t get splattered to bits by their numbers and superior firepower, what then?”  
The hybrid woman hesitated for a moment, “They have a ship that can accommodate all of us. We’re going to commandeer it and fly it out of here.”  
“Oh god… you’re serious…” The giant woman stared at Riichi like she was crazy. “Who’s gonna fly it?”  
“Me. I’m a fast learner, and I can interface with their tech because of this,” the hybrid woman gestured to her cannon once more.  
“I’m not sure whether I want to laugh or cry at you; you’re totally batshit.”  
“Batshit?” Riichi repeated the phrase with her usual confusion.  
“Means you’re a psycho bitch. Even if you do manage to take over the ship and fly it, where are we gonna go after that?”  
Riichi actively experienced exasperation for the first time as she crossed her arms, “Does it matter? No one can plan that far ahead into the future, and even if they do, life is going to happen. We can only live in the present and hope we’ve prepared for any contingency. I don’t have any of my memories from before, but even I can see that you’re trying to justify your own death to make yourself feel better.”  
A fresh anger sparked in the giant’s eyes, “I’d rather let this virus take me than get captured and experimented on even more! Humans, Kind: what’s the difference?! They’re all fucked up monsters! How the fuck are you gonna save me anyway?! You’re a genetic super freak; I’ll bet the virus didn’t even work on you fuckin’...”  
“It did work on me!” Riichi shouted, but she was still calm. “I can give you the antidote; it’s in my blood. If you want to give up and die, that’s your prerogative, but don’t tell me that my way is any crazier than yours; at least I’m trying.”  
Kaze grit her teeth and clenched her fists at her sides, “You’re calling me a coward?”  
“That’s the word that comes to mind,” Riichi replied coldly, “Though I just remembered another word for it...pussy.”  
The last thing Riichi remembered was an earsplitting cry followed by flashing red eyes. Her instincts kicked in before she did, and her new armored skin hardened around her body as a fist the size of her entire torso smashed into her like a truck. She was punched so hard that she was actually lifted off the ground and sent sprawling several feet away, and she heard a voice in her head as she struggled to get up.  
“Remind me to talk to you about a little something called social tact.”  
The giant girl roared as she closed the gap between her and her aggressor, and Riichi sprinted forward, “Just get started on the next serum!”  
“Fuck you, bitch!” The giant screamed as she attempted to slam her fists down onto the hybrid girl. Riichi was too fast, however, and slid between the woman’s legs.  
“Tell me what you know about her!” Riichi asked the voice as she tried to put some distance between herself and the raging woman.  
“Not much,” the voice replied as the giant picked up one of the barricades and hurled it at Riichi. Riichi dodged, but just barely, and the barricade smashed against the wall with an overtly loud thud. “Her skin is almost as hard as yours is when you’re armored, and she’s… shit, give me a second.”  
“Sure, take your time,” Riichi muttered as the giant charged again. This time, the huge woman tried to swipe at her, but Riichi span out of the way and backpedaled to the side. Her equilibrium was a little thrown by the punch she’d taken, but overall she was surprised by how well she’d been able to take the hit.  
“Okay, she’s… extremely sensitive. Her nerves have been configured to experience enhanced and magnified feedback, which is probably how they kept her in check. Her skin is almost impervious to pain, though, so they controlled her with the collar.”  
Riichi ran to the opposite side of the room, “What about sex?” She asked, remembering the pleasure she’d felt from being orally stimulated by Haku. It had been enough to stop her in her tracks, even in her beat up state.  
“What about it?” The voice asked with surprise.  
“I mean pleasure. Do you think I can make her feel good instead of trying to hurt her?”  
“She’s trying to kill you at the moment, so that seems unlikely.”  
Riichi growled as the giant approached once more, this time a little more deliberately, but still with a burning countenance. It was horrendously frustrating not to be able to remember anything, but she knew that that was a way to wind up a woman even if she wasn’t feeling amorous. “What’s the sex button on a woman called?”  
The voice in her head didn’t respond for a long moment, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Riichi.”  
The giant shouted, “Who are you talking to?! Stand still so I can kill you, bitch!”  
Riichi ignored the woman as she winced, “You know… that spot. That one sensitive spot that women touch themselves on when they want to…”  
“The clitoris?”  
“Yes, that’s it!” Riichi smiled before frowning immediately, “Where is it?”  
“Some men have wondered that for ages,” the mysterious voice chuckled. “Seriously, it’s right up near the top of labia, or pussy lips, if you prefer. That part where the lips…”  
Screekoof!  
Kaze threw another barricade, and Riichi dove aside as it nicked her heels. the force threw her off a bit, and she tumbled down hard onto her shoulder. It popped painfully, but she didn’t have time to think about it as she turned to see a massive bare foot ascending down onto her.  
“Die!”  
Riichi rolled out of the way as she lurched upward. The giant’s foot was the size of her entire torso, and even if the blow didn’t kill her she would most certainly be pinned long enough for the enraged woman to finish the job.  
It was clear that the overgrown woman had the physical advantage of strength, but Riichi was far more mobile, and she scrambled back to the woman’s calf and jumped upwards, grabbing hold of Kaze’s tight shorts.  
“What the fuck are you doing?!” Kaze swatted at the backs of her legs as she felt her crotch being pulled on.  
Riichi grabbed up as much of the material as she could and lifted her legs off the ground with a grunt. Using her body weight, she pitched a hand over to the other leg of the shorts before pulling downward as hard as she could.  
“What the shit!” The giant screamed in dismay as her shorts were pulled down to her lower thighs. She opened her palm and tried to smack at Riichi, but the ant of a woman scurried away before she could make contact. Her palm hit the ground with a sharp whack, and her knees wobbled as she felt herself lose her balance, “N,no!”  
The giant fell sideways as she twisted her body. Her shorts tangled between her legs, she grabbed at them and tried to right them, but Riichi was directly behind her, and she felt something hard and forceful sliding up between her legs.  
The hybrid woman huffed as she crammed her biosynthetic arm between the giant’s soft, warm crotch. She had absolutely no idea what she was doing, but she had seen her own reflection enough times during experiments that she knew where the top of the labia was. Kaze squirmed as she pressed her flat palm into the hot flesh, and she felt something roundish and warm almost immediately.  
“Get away from me you fuckin’ bastard!” The giant thrashed as she tried to reach around to her backside, “I’m gonna squeeze you until your fuckin’ eyes pop out, you little shit eater!” She gasped loudly as her movements slowed, “Stop that! The fuck you doing, bitch?! What is wrong with you?!” She screamed in confusion as her eyes grew heavy.  
Riichi began to push the warm mound of flesh roughly as she grunted, “Am I doing it right?”  
“Small, even circles,” The voice in her head said quickly.  
The hybrid woman did as she was told and began to swirl her palm over the hot area she’d found.  
“S,stop…” the giant sighed angrily as tears began to form in her eyes. Her heart and mind were filled with an unquenchable, almost suicidal rage, but her body was suddenly being very uncooperative. Her life had been consumed by pain and suffering for so long that whatever was happening to her was almost entirely foreign. Her crotch, legs and torso were beginning to tingle, and even her arms were beginning to go limp. “Get the f,fuck away from me…” she gasped as the feeling intensified.  
Riichi swallowed hard as she felt the squishy lump of flesh beginning to harden and swell in her hand. Whatever she was rubbing on began to take shape, and she adjusted her angle as the giant relaxed, “I don’t want to hurt you…” she said carefully as she continued to rub, “I really do want to save you.”  
For the first time since Kaze could remember, she uttered a moan of unmistakable pleasure, “Oh god… why… why are you doing this to me?” Her question was laced with heavy breath as she parted her legs slightly. It was almost as if her muscles were moving on their own, and the tingling grew to an undeniable desire for more stimulation.  
Riichi said nothing as she adjusted her angle and rested her body on the woman’s ample rear end. Kaze’s bottom was large enough for her to brace herself against, and she leveraged herself harder down onto the woman’s clit as she felt herself becoming hard.  
“Oh shit...god… yes!” The giant cried openly as her mouth fell open. Suddenly she couldn’t remember what she was so angry about, but it hardly mattered. Something amazing was budding inside of her and blossoming quickly, and her red eyes shimmered in the darkness as she cried out, “Holy fuck, don’t stop!”  
The hybrid woman’s breath quickened as she realized that she was getting excited. It felt good to stimulate the giant, better than good, actually, and she began to explore the shape of Kaze’s oversized pussy as she continued to rub, “It’s nice…” she breathed as she felt her cock grow completely erect. “I mean, it feels really good…”  
Kaze began to whimper as she opened her legs. Her movements were restricted by the shorts, but she wiggled her giant, bare rear down onto Riichi's hand, "Mm...faster! Harder!"  
Riichi changed her angle and pressed both of her hands flat against Kaze's clit. The heady smell of the woman's desire filled her nostrils as she made a wide, sweeping motions with her palms. She felt Kaze's 'button' firm up even more, and the woman began to whimper loudly as her legs began to shake.  
"F,fuck me! I can't...s,shit!"  
Somewhere between Kaze's screaming and her own aching cock, Riichi stopped thinking and started doing. She'd heard what the giant had said, and instead of assuming it was a pleasure charged phrase, she took it literally and plunged her rock hard, armor reinforced cock into the woman.  
Kaze's eyes shimmered as she continued to scream, "Ngh fuck! Fuck me, bitch! Take my pussy!"  
Riichi's mouth fell open as she began to rock her hips. Her body moved instinctively, and she groaned loudly as she slapped one hand down onto the giant's ass and the other back down onto her engorged clit. Kaze's pussy was hot and enveloping and more than twice the size of any normal woman's, but still it was tight enough for Riichi to feel its wet walls sliding against her.  
Kaze moaned as she curled her arms inward and clutched her chest tightly, “More! Please, more, I’m begging you!”  
Even in her heightened state of arousal, Riichi realized that the size difference was too great. Her penis was only five or six inches long, and she didn’t have the ability to go any harder. She thought the woman might be asking for more stimulation, so, without thinking twice, she raised her left hand and smacked Kaze’s ass as hard as she could.  
The sharp whack rang in the giant’s ear as she wailed, “Holy fuck, yes! Hit me again!”  
Riichi did. She raised her hand and brought it down for a second time, and the skin on skin crack somehow made her harder as she felt herself creeping towards the point of no return.  
The two writhed that way for almost two minutes in the red emergency lights. Riichi began to dig her nails into the Kaze’s skin, and Kaze howled as her clit was bashed and shoved around in every direction. Her skin was hard and seemingly impenetrable, but somehow it was still soft, and Riichi ran her fingertips all over the woman’s massive legs and ass as she pounded into her as roughly as she could.  
“That thing is happening to me…” Riichi huffed to no one in particular, “Is it...gonna be enough?”  
The voice that had led her to that point piped, “I’m not sure. I’m certain that you’re barely entering her; it might be a good idea to let it out on your hand and…”  
Riichi was already cumming, however, and she barely registered what her guide was trying to tell her as she let go of Kaze’s ass and pulled out. “Aw, I...ngh!” She took her hand off of the woman’s slick clit and grabbed her armored dick roughly before pointing it at her open palm.  
Riichi’s cock bucked in her hand as it shunted three consecutive wads of hot cum. Her seed was thick and virile, and she closed her eyes for a moment as she allowed herself to feel the pleasure.  
Before, she’d been so beat up that the pleasure of her climax had been secondary to her goal, but this time, it washed over her with vivid intensity.  
Halfway through her trembling, however, her eyes shot open as she remembered what she needed to do. She faced her unlikely partner and ran her hand down the woman’s labia, then she shoved her entire hand into Kaze’s drenched pussy.  
“God fucking dammit!” Kaze shouted as she felt herself being penetrated. “Ngh! Gah! F,fuck…” she whimpered once more as she lowered her head and gave in to something that she’d been deprived of for so long.  
Riichi opened her palm inside of the woman’s burning insides and pushed in her cum further, all the way to her forearm. Kaze’s pussy lips almost swallowed her entire arm as the smooth edge of the Kind cannon pressed up against her skin, but the hybrid woman didn’t pay it any mind as she slathered her life saving cream all over the giant’s insides.  
“No...no…” Kaze wept as her entire body shook. She was several times more sensitive than the average human, and she could feel every movement of Riichi’s hand inside of her pussy, especially when she rubbed against a certain spot towards the top…  
“That spot right there!” Kaze screamed desperately as Riichi’s fingers brushed up against it.  
“This spot?” The hybrid woman growled excitedly as she brought her hand back.  
“Yus! Pound that spot! Please!”  
Riichi closed her fist tightly and pulled her arm out before slamming it back up into the spongy, wet spot.  
“Gah!” Kaze began to drool as Riichi’s fist smashed against her g-spot, “Again! For fuck’s sake, a hundred times!”  
Riichi lowered her body and braced herself before gritting her teeth. She pulled her arm out of the giant girl slowly, and a sticky, warm gush of pussy juice followed and dripped down onto the floor. It was...messy, Riichi realized, but also… extremely, inextricably exciting, and she decided that she liked it more than she wanted to admit.   
With a focused grin, she set her jaw and plunged her fist back into the giant girl. Then she did it again, harder, and a third time, even harder than the last.  
She’s gonna kill me… Kaze thought distantly as she felt something in her head beginning to buzz. The blue veins around her forehead and neck began to disappear as she shook her head and cried out, I could think of worse ways to die…  
Riichi’s expression became feral as she proceeded to fist blast Kaze’s pussy into oblivion, “Like this?! Is this what you wanted?! Aren’t you glad you didn’t kill me?!”  
Kaze howled as tears and drool fell down her face.  
Riichi felt the woman’s pussy clench around her arm tightly, almost to the point where she couldn’t pull it out. The sensation of fiery hot flesh wrapping around her forearm was exhilarating, and she began to laugh as she pulled her arm out.  
In the darkness, a blue vein began to form at the top of her forehead, and the voice spoke.  
“Riichi, it appears you’re infected again. I’m working on another compound for you, but it’s not complete yet… this area has limited power.”  
“That’s fine,” Riichi stepped around to the front of the heaving, prostrate, giant, “Take your time.”  
Kaze opened her eyes slowly as consciousness returned to her. She’d climaxed so hard that she’d passed out for a moment, and when she opened her eyes she saw the small hybrid woman standing directly over her chest, angled towards her face.  
“I’ve given you the cure… you should be feeling better as we speak,” the woman spoke quietly. “I’ve been infected by you, but I’ll be fine shortly.”  
Kaze’s fogged mind sharpened immediately, “You’ve been infected?” She asked lowly, her voice tinged with guilt.  
“Yes, but I knew I would be,” Riichi looked over the wondrously tall woman and swallowed hard, “I’m taking something for myself, though, so don’t feel bad about it.” She looked down at her crotch, and her armored cock was still completely at attention. Riichi sighed and closed her eyes for a moment before her skin began to revert back to normal. She reached out to Kaze’s stretchy top and grabbed it up, “I’m very curious about you… you won’t mind if I…”  
Kaze blushed hotly as the hybrid tugged her shirt up.  
Even in the darkness, Riichi could see her prey well enough. Kaze’s shapely tummy flared upward towards her strong abs. Her bare breasts were pushed together, given the position she was in, but as a set they were nearly half the size of Riichi herself. The poignant outlines of Kaze’s nipples could be seen hardening around her wide, dark areola, easily the size of Riichi’s entire fist.  
“Oh fuck…” Riichi uttered, unbenknowst to her. Her cock twitched as a drip of pre ran down onto the floor, “I need those in my mouth right now…”  
“H,hey!” Kaze’s brow furrowed as she saw Riichi’s legs give out. She reached out quickly and caught the girl before she hit the ground, “Are you okay?!”  
Riichi opened her eyes slowly as she heard the voice in her head, “Kaze’s version of the virus is intense. You’re body won’t be able to handle it for very long; you need to get into her room right now.”  
Riichi licked her lips and murmured up at the giant girl, “Can you… take me back to your room?”  
It took Kaze a moment to understand what the hybrid wanted, and her eyes widened, “No, please, don’t make me go back in there!”  
Riichi coughed as the blue vein ran down her cheek at an alarming rate, “P,please?”  
Kaze’s face was deeply pained for a moment, but she nodded, “Yeah… ok.”  
She took a step towards the massive door she’d ripped open, but she stopped when Riichi tapped her hand weakly.  
“Haku...call Haku…”  
“Haku?” Kaze furrowed her brow down at the limp woman, “Who’s…”  
“She’s talking about me,” someone said from nearby.  
The giant girl looked around and saw a woman emerge from the shadows. “What the...oh! You’re Haku! I’ve heard of you…you’re the milk lady that Simmons was working on.” She looked over the cow girl for a long moment and blinked, “You’re tits are huge!”  
Haku scowled, “Have you looked in a mirror recently?”  
Kaze remembered that her shirt had been pulled up, and her face turned red, even against the emergency lights. She tugged it back down over her chest and cleared her throat, “We gotta save this little shit, I guess; you coming or what?”  
“Whether you invited me or not,” Haku huffed.  
“Hey, is it true that your milk can hyper heal wounds?”  
“Yes. Is it true that you’re a vicious monster that likes to eat people?”  
“What?” Kaze giggled, “Monster, sure, but eating people? Ew, fucking gross! Mostly I eat a ton of meat and whatever else they feel like feeding me in this god forsaken dump.”  
“Geh, meat,” Haku made a face. “I’m strictly vegetarian, I…”  
Riichi listened to her fellow mutants talk as she was carried towards yet another compound that would simultaneously cure her and further complicate her life. She was actually enjoying the easy dialogue between the two, but her mind grew more clouded with each second, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to hang on.


End file.
